UT law student accused of sexual conduct with minor

A third-year law student at the University of Toledo was indicted Friday, Oct. 17 for several felonious charges and is waiting in jail until his arraignment Wednesday, Oct. 22.

Josef Vrtiska, 26, faces one second-degree charge for “illegal use of a minor and nudity oriented material,” three third-degree charges for “unlawful sexual conduct with a minor” and one fifth-degree charge for importuning — the solicitation of a minor to engage in sex — according to Detective Deborah Mullin of the Hilliard Division of Police in Ohio.

The severity of a felony is rated on a scale from one to five, Mullin said — the lower the number is, the greater the offense.

The second-degree charge, or F2, pertains to nudity involving a minor.

Mullin said those charges would come from a perpetrator asking a victim to send “nude pictures of her private parts, typically genitalia” and then the perpetrator receiving those pictures.

Each of Vrtiska’s three F3s were given for a time he allegedly met up with the young girl for sex, according to Mullin.

“Each time something happens,” she said, “it could potentially be an additional charge.”

Vrtiska is currently being held at the Franklin County Jail where he will be held until Wednesday’s arraignment in the common pleas court, according to Mullin. At that time, she said the court will determine if there is a bond and if there is a chance to bond out.

“I’d rather get him charged and get him off the street,” Mullin said. “I feel that he’s a predator and a public danger to young people, so it’s best to get him locked up.”

There could be other charges, but those will probably be at the federal level, according to Mullin.

She said many things can happen between indictment and a charge, but she “fully expects something to come of it.”

According to a released statement from UT, the university does not comment on legal matters still in process.

“We hold our faculty, staff and students to the highest standard of respectful and appropriate behavior at all times,” they added.

Mullin said Vrtiska travelled to a hotel in Hilliard on three separate occasions to have sex with a teenage girl he met on the app “Snapchat.”

“Toledo [Police Department] got notified by an outside agency about this student because this is a multi-jurisdictional case,” Mullin said.

According to Mullin, the outside agency informed Toledo Police of what was going on and they searched Vrtiska’s residence with a warrant.

“From there, our place of interest is usually involving electronics because that’s how people meet — through the internet,” Mullin said.

It was while police searched his residence that Vrtiska admitted to meeting up with the young girl who was 14 years old at the time of the incident. She went to school in Hilliard, which is how Mullin said police discovered there was a potential victim there.

“So we here investigated that end with our victim and she verified that she did know him,” Mullin said, “and it was verified that she had met up with him, met him online.”

Vrtiska is listed on UT websites as the vice president of the graduate student association. He is also listed as the president of UT’s College of Law Business Law Society. Neither group could be reached for comment before publication.