COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has appointed a three-judge panel to consider a request from Attorney General Mike DeWine to suspend Athens County Sheriff Patrick Kelly, who is facing more than two dozen corruption charges.
DeWine requested that O’Connor appoint the special commission on Feb. 4, shortly after a grand jury returned a 25-count indictment against Kelly who refused to step down and has maintained his innocence. O’Connor was required by law to wait 14 days before acting on the request, court spokesman Bret Crow said
According to court documents, the panel consists of three retired judges, one of whom must belong to the same political party as the public official whose suspension is being considered.
John Bender sat on the Franklin County Common Pleas Court bench until he retired in 2012, even though his term ran through 2016. Bender was Gov. Robert Taft’s director of the Office of Criminal Justice Services and was appointed to the court in 2000 but lost that year’s election, only to be appointed again in 2003. Bender was re-elected twice.
Neal Bronson was a judge on the Warren County Court of Common Pleas in Lebanon until retiring at the end of his term on Dec. 31, 2012. He presided over the case of Sam, a cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking chimp caught in a custody battle between his owner and the Humane Society, and three sensational trials for Ryan Widmer, convicted of murder in 2008, three years after his wife was drowned in a bathtub.
Jennifer Sargus retired in May, 2013, after 24 years on Belmont County Common Pleas Court. Among the cases she presided over was the murder of four people in St. Clairsville in 1999.
The special commission will meet behind closed doors and records will not be made public until it issues a written report or “otherwise concludes its proceedings,” according to the announcement from the court.
Crow says the commission must make a preliminary determination about whether Kelly should be suspended within 14 days, which Kelly may contest within another 14 days. If he appeals, Kelly must appear at a meeting of the panel within yet another two weeks. After that meeting, if it takes place, Crow says the commission would issue its final decision.