By Joe Johnson
An Athens bar owner arrested last week for allegedly raping a customer inside his establishment will remain in jail least another two weeks.
David Ellis Ippisch was scheduled to have a bond hearing Wednesday in Clarke County Superior Court, but an Atlanta television station filed a request to video the proceeding and one of Ippisch’s attorneys filed a motion objecting to TV coverage.
“Under the guise of journalism or informing the public at large, the request is made merely to provide titillation and base provocation under the guise of gathering news,” Athens attorney Markus Boenig argued in the motion.
A hearing on the TV station’s request and the defense attorney’s objection was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Dec. 18.
Boenig also on Wednesday requested a continuance in order to have time to contact and subpoena potential witnesses for the bond hearing.
Ippisch, 38, was arrested Nov. 25 on charges of kidnapping, rape, sexual battery and two counts of battery, police said.
According to Athens-Clarke County police, Ippisch assaulted a 21-year-old customer between midnight and 2 a.m. Nov. 24 at The Hedges, a bar Ippisch owns on East Broad Street.
He allegedly pulled the victim into a bar storage room where he assaulted her, police said.
The Hedges is located next to another bar that Ippisch owns, 100 Proof.
Ippisch was being held without bond at the Clarke County Jail.
In the motion for bond, Boenig argued that his client had no criminal history and is a longstanding business owner with strong ties to the community.
Additionally, the attorney stated in the motion, “(Ippisch) employs a staff of approximately sixty individuals, many of whom rely on their paychecks from Defendant as their only source of income.”
The motion notes that both of Ippisch’s bars have been closed since his arrest “and will remain so in his continued absence."