LORAIN — A Lorain man is facing a theft charge after he was caught on a security video swiping the gavel off the bench of Lorain Municipal Court Magistrate Chris Cook.

The video, shot the morning of March 30, shows Christopher Collins and another man, who hasn’t been charged, waiting in Cook’s courtroom. At one point in the video, Collins can be seen leaning over the edge of the bench and slipping Cook’s gavel into the sleeve of his jacket.

“That’s a motivated thief to steal from a courtroom,” Cook said, although he added that Collins probably didn’t realize there were video cameras in the courtroom.

Cook said he didn’t notice the gavel was missing until Monday when he was having a hearing and reached for it. The last time he recalled having it was during a hearing on March 29, the day before the theft.

Cook and his staff reviewed the video and recognized the man who was with the 39-year-old Collins and police then began checking the other man’s criminal history and linked him to Collins, according to a Lorain police report.

Police arrested Collins, who confessed to stealing the gavel, the report said.

Collins, who has previous theft convictions, told police he had been given a ride to court by a man he barely knows on March 30 and that he left the gavel in the man’s car.

Collins told police that he might be able to get the gavel back.

“If he returned my gavel, I would be a lot less inclined to bring him back in for contempt,” Cook said.

Cook, who has been a magistrate dealing with small claims and traffic cases for about seven years, said he rarely uses the gavel, but sometimes has to bang it to get people’s attention during hearings.

“It was given to me by my wife when I was first appointed, so it has a lot of sentimental value,” he said.
Collins was arraigned Thursday in Lorain Municipal Court on the theft charge and is due back in court later this month.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

CLEVELAND — Nobody was doing much hitting Thursday afternoon at Progressive Field, so Indians manager Manny Acta decided to do something else.

What Acta concocted — a suicide squeeze bunt — worked to perfection, and the second-year skipper and his young team departed for a six-game road trip smelling like roses after a 1-0 victory completed a shocking sweep of the high-profile Boston Red Sox.

Dominant starting pitching from Cleveland’s Fausto Carmona and Boston’s Jon Lester moved the game in a low-scoring direction, giving Acta an ideal opportunity to put his ploy of the day in motion.

More photos below.

With the game in a scoreless tie, Adam Everett walked to lead off the eighth, then stole second base. He was moved to third on a sacrifice bunt from Orlando Cabrera, bringing Asdrubal Cabrera to the plate.

Shortly before Daniel Bard uncorked a 2-1 pitch Acta called for the squeeze, and Asdrubal Cabrera somehow handled a fastball low and away from the hard-throwing right-hander and dropped it down the third-base line to give Kevin Youkilis no other play but to first.

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Everett came racing in with the winning run, heaping all the praise on Asdrubal Cabrera and his textbook bunt.

“It was funny because I didn’t think Cabby got the sign,” said Everett, who shortly after getting the squeeze sign, saw Cabrera looking down as he prepared to step back into the box. “Obviously he got it. What a great job by him. That was all him.

“It was just great execution. It was a great play.”

“You just have to put the ball in play,” Cabrera said. “It wasn’t a perfect pitch, but I got it down. That’s my game.”

Acta has done this before, three times last year, actually. And on each of his four squeeze attempts as Cleveland manager, he has been successful. He said he thought of pulling off No. 4 prior to the start of the inning, as long as Asdrubal Cabrera was at the plate.

“You’ve got a guy out on the mound that is tough to handle,” he said of Bard. “We got ahead in the count. I had my closer up. In that type of situation, I felt like that was the thing to do.

“I trust Cabby a lot. It was a tough pitch, but he got it down.”

Boston’s final at-bat was not without its drama.

David Ortiz walked with two outs off Cleveland closer Chris Perez and was replaced by pinch runner Darnell McDonald.

The following batter, J.D. Drew, sent a grounder up the middle that deflected off Perez and to Everett at third base. Everett had no play at first, but with McDonald rounding second too far, was able to throw to Orlando Cabrera, who tagged out a diving McDonald to end the game.

A feverish finish capped what began as a sleepy pitching duel between Carmona and Lester, who locked horns for seven innings, neither yielding much of anything outside of a handful of hits — Lester with three and Carmona with two.

The Red Sox had one runner in scoring position on Carmona and Cleveland accomplished the feat just twice on Lester.

Carmona was able to put aside a disappointing debut in his first career Opening Day start as the Indians’ new ace, offering up an outing worthy of a No. 1 starter.

“Today is a new day,” Carmona said. “I can’t control what happened last time. It was much better. I threw more strikes and kept the ball down.”

“Fausto was tremendous,” Acta said. “He really attacked the strike zone. He dominated. I don’t think this guy is going to take a step back. He knows how good he is.”

The surprising win completed two somewhat shocking developments to start the 2011 season. At 4-2, the Indians are in first place in the Central Division for the first time since 2008, and the Red Sox, who entered the season as a World Series favorite, remain winless at 0-6.

The last time the Indians won four or more of their first six games was in 2006, when they started the year with a 5-1 record. Boston has only began a season with six straight losses four times in club history, the last coming in 1945 when the Red Sox started 0-8.

No team has ever qualified for the postseason with six straight losses to start the year, a fate that would fall staggeringly low of expectations for the Red Sox nation.

A 4-2 start to the season has far exceeded expectations in Cleveland.

“That’s a great baseball team over there,” Everett said of the Red Sox. “That’s not a good team, that’s a great team. We caught them when they weren’t swinging the bats, but anytime you sweep a team like that, that’s huge for a young team like us.”

Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.

COLUMBUS — Insurers say so far they’ve received about $69 million in claims related to violent storms and flooding that hit Ohio in late February.

The Ohio Insurance Institute says the tally of losses is expected to rise in the coming months as more property damage is detected.

The storms were accompanied by a tornado in central Ohio’s Fairfield County and wind gusts of 60 mph or higher in several places. Thousands of homes and businesses lost power.

Streets and neighborhoods were swamped as rivers and streams topped their banks. Many areas received at least 2 inches of rain on top of 6 inches of melting snow already on the ground.

Insurers participating in a survey say almost 15,900 claims have been filed statewide because of damage from the storms.

CLEVELAND — The Indians completed their season-opening homestand in fine fashion Thursday, beating the Boston Red Sox 1-0 at Progressive Field. After at 0-2 start, the Indians have won four straight to move into a first-place tie in the AL Central Division.

The Indians got the run in the eighth inning, when Adam Everett scored on a suicide squeeze bunt by Asdrubal Cabrera. Everett was off with the pitch, and Cabrera managed to bunt the ball fair despite it being low and outside. Everett walked, stole second and was sacrificed to third by Orlando Cabrera.

Fausto Carmona pitched seven dominant innings, allowing just two hits and striking out four.

CHECK BACK LATER FOR MORE TRIBE COVERAGE.