Files detail how judge avoided felonies
An investigator for the Ohio auditor’s office recommended felony theft-in-office charges against Judge Tim Horton of the Franklin County Court of Appeals after a 10-month investigation of his campaign-finance activities during the 2014 election.
But after the case was referred to the state attorney general’s office, a deal was negotiated in which Horton pleaded guilty last month to misdemeanor charges based on three campaign expenditures that were deemed excessive. He is scheduled to be sentenced
on March 16 in Common Pleas Court.
The state auditor’s felony recommendation is included in a 538page report obtained by The Dispatch through a public records request. The investigation found that Horton, while serving as a Franklin County Common Pleas judge and seeking the seat he eventually won on the appeals court bench:
Frequently instructed his secretary, Elise Wyant, who eventually became his bailiff, to conduct campaign business on county time and with county equipment.
Asked his staff attorney, Emily Vincent, to compile lists of rulings he had issued in court cases that might help him get endorsements from various individuals and organizations.
An attorney for Horton said the investigation of the Democratic judge by the office of state Auditor Dave Yost, a Republican, was contaminated by politics.
“It’s nothing more than a partisan hack job by a very political state auditor who was pursuing Judge Horton for purely political purposes,” attorney James Owen said. “Fortunately, we have an attorney general in Ohio who did an independent investigation and came to the right conclusion.
“If there was any credible evidence that Horton had committed a theft offense, he would have been indicted in a heartbeat.”
According to the report, the Ohio Supreme Court referred the matter to the auditor’s office.
“This office is obligated by statute to investigate alleged unlawful expenditures of public money,” said Brendan Inscho, assistant legal counsel for the auditor’s office. “We didn’t go looking for this investigation.”
The misdemeanors Horton pleaded to were not based on information gathered in the auditor’s investigation.
“Our office devoted significant additional resources to investigate this matter after referral and the three first-degree misdemeanors to which Judge Horton pleaded guilty are significant offenses,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for state Attorney General Mike DeWine, a Republican, wrote in an email.
Each misdemeanor carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, but probation is a common sentence for first-time, nonviolent offenders.
While a felony conviction triggers an interim suspension of a person’s law license while the matter is investigated by the state Supreme Court’s disciplinary counsel, no such suspension results from a misdemeanor conviction.
The report by lead investigator Robert D. Bogner detailed how Wyant exchanged campaign-related emails and text messages with the judge during working hours; attended golf outings with him during the workday without requesting leave; went to his campaign-finance manager’s office to pick up checks for campaign-related expenses at his direction; and prepared letters on her work computer seeking endorsements from individuals and organizations.
Those activities were the basis of Bogner’s recommendation that Horton be indicted for theft in office and complicity to theft in office, both fifth-degree felonies, and a misdemeanor theft charge.
Vincent, the former staff attorney, told investigators that Horton asked her to compile lists of court cases in which the judge rendered rulings favorable to the city of Columbus, labor unions and those involved in a lawsuit challenging the establishment of racetrack casinos in Ohio.
She said the judge told her that he could use the rulings in an effort to get support or endorsements from then-Mayor Michael B. Coleman and the local firefighters union and contributions from casinos and their attorneys. She didn’t know if Horton used any of the information she gathered for him.
For a judge to suggest that he might use his rulings to influence contributions or gain endorsements is “completely appalling,” said Catherine Turcer, policy analyst for Common Cause Ohio, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
“Even if it never happened, just that he gave her the assignment is deeply troubling,” Turcer said.
The investigations of Horton were prompted by Wyant’s resignation as his bailiff in November 2014, when she supplied the court with a complaint packet that said the judge sexually harassed her and required her to do campaign work on county time.
The Supreme Court referred the campaign-finance allegations to the state auditor in January 2015 after receiving information from Pat Sheeran, then administrative judge for Common Pleas Court, who had conducted an internal investigation of Wyant’s complaint.
In November 2015, the auditor’s office gave its investigative packet to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien. He asked the attorney general’s office to serve as special prosecutor on the case to avoid a conflict of interest for the county prosecutor, whose office argues cases in the appeals court.
Horton and his attorneys met with the auditor’s investigators in September 2015 and provided a written statement. “Judge Horton denies that he engaged in any wrongdoing concerning campaign finance and/or the use of county resources regarding the same,” the statement began. “If Elise Wyant engaged in any wrongdoing she did so against the explicit instructions of Judge Horton.”
Horton, 46, who served as a Common Pleas judge for eight years, was elected without opposition to the appeals court in November 2014.
Despite learning in March 2014 that his opponent had dropped out of the race, Horton continued to hold fundraisers “because he wanted to use his campaign money to have a good time over the summer,” Wyant told the auditor’s investigators.
Wyant said “she was present on numerous occasions when Judge Horton used the campaign credit card to pay for lunches and happy hour drinks when there was no discussion about his campaign,” according to the report.
A Dispatch review of Horton’s campaignfinance reports found that, after learning he was unopposed, the judge had 102 meeting expenses totaling $6,905 in the months leading up to the 2014 election. The money went for food and beverages at some casual and fine restaurants, including Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, Barcelona, The Pearl, Milestone 229, Mitchell’s Steakhouse and Mitchell’s Ocean Club.
In his plea agreement, Horton admitted that three expenses were excessive: $1,040 for an event at Hyde Park to celebrate his opponent’s withdrawal from the race; $173 on cigars from Tinderbox for campaign supporters despite running unopposed; and $979 for a fundraiser at Due Amici, a Downtown restaurant, that attracted only one person beyond Horton and his campaign staff. The Due Amici event occurred before his opponent dropped out.
Judge Lisa L. Sadler, who also ran unopposed for the appeals court in 2014, listed no meeting expenses in her campaign-finance reports, The Dispatch found. The only food on her reports was $223 for a volunteer appreciation dinner in June 2014.
Among the things that Vincent, the former staff attorney, said she prepared at Horton’s request was information about attorneys and casinos who benefited from his 2012 ruling that allowed “racinos” to operate at Ohio horseracing tracks.
“When Judge Horton received the casino case (information) he commented that a lot can happen on an appeal, and they should hedge their bets in terms of donating to him in the event their case got returned to his court,” she said.
Bridgette Tupes, who was hired as a fundraiser for three of Horton’s fundraising events in 2014, told the auditor’s investigators that the judge “made things very uncomfortable during the entire time (she) worked with him.”
According to the report, “When asked if she felt Judge Horton was bending campaign rules, Tupes stated she felt Judge Horton didn’t care about rules in general ... Tupes told Judge Horton that he needed to be careful using Wyant to do campaign duties because there were rules and he needed to keep things separate. Judge Horton basically commented that he didn’t care.”