Misuse of funds gets judge 10 days in jail
Franklin County Appeals Court Judge Tim Horton will spend 10 days in jail, give $2,065 to a food bank, perform 100 hours of community service and undergo alcohol treatment after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor counts of inaccurate campaign-finance reports involving “unreasonable and excessive” spending of funds.
Visiting Common Pleas Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Thursday initially sentenced Horton to six months in jail, but she suspended that sentence. She ordered him to serve a year on probation and pay a $1,000 fine.
Cosgrove told Horton he harmed himself, his family, the judiciary and taxpayers with his action. The retired Summit County Common Pleas judge then sentenced him to 10 days in jail.
“To not give you a jail sentence of some kind would be a disservice,” she said. “The harm that you’ve given is not just to you.”
Cosgrove said Horton was callous in blatantly misusing campaign funds meant to get him into office. “You just didn’t care and you partied on it,” she said.
Horton, 47, told the judge he had made “mistakes and misjudgments” in part because of an alcohol problem. He said that’s now under control.
“I’ve been sober for 14 or 15 months now and am working very hard on making amends to my family and friends,” he said. “I would like to move forward.” He described the past 2 years he’s been under investigation as “degrading and humiliating,” but conceded that “I put myself in that position.”
Franklin County Republican Party Chairman Doug Preisse issued a statement calling on Horton to resign before going to jail.
“It’s shocking that any judge would propose that he be allowed to go to jail and come back to serve on the court when he’s released. The fact that he needs a job doesn’t justify his remaining in a position that allows him to violate the public trust,” Preisse said. “When Judge Horton leaves the bench to report to jail, he should do the citizens of Franklin County a favor and not return.”
Horton served as a Franklin County Common Pleas judge from 2006 until 2014, when he won election to the appeals court.
The matter was referred for prosecution in January by the Ohio Elections Commission at the request of Matthew Donahue, an assistant attorney general who was appointed as special prosecutor in the case, and defense attorneys for Horton.
It is the first time the Elections Commission, which enforces the state’s campaign finance and practices laws, has referred a sitting judge for prosecution since the commission became an independent agency in 1996.
Under the plea agreement, Horton admitted to:
Spending $1,040 at the upscale Hyde Park Grille restaurant for a private campaign event on March 24, 2014, to celebrate the withdrawal of his opponent in the appeals court race, leaving him unopposed for the seat.
Cosgrove said making Horton donate money to the food bank is to show him that some people can’t afford eating at restaurants such as Hyde Park.
Spending $979 earlier that month at a campaign fundraiser at Due Amici, a Downtown Italian restaurant, that attracted only one person outside of Horton and his campaign staff.
Spending $173 on cigars from Tinderbox Tobacco and Gifts for campaign supporters on July 23, 2014, even though it was an “excessive and unreasonable amount” because he was running unopposed.
“He knew right from wrong. He knew what he was doing and chose to do it anyway,” Donahue said.
The charges resulted from a series of investigations that began in October 2014, when Horton’s Common Pleas bailiff, Elise Wyant, then 26, resigned and filed a complaint alleging that he made sexual advances, groped her and described his sexual affairs with other women. She also wrote that Horton required her to perform campaign duties on county time.
The bailiff later received a $45,000 settlement from the county and a judges’ self-insurance fund. A former intern also said she was sexually harassed by Horton. A court review panel issued no findings against Horton, noting it has no authority to discipline a judge.
Jim Owen, one of Horton’s lawyers, said the 26-month investigation of Horton by court officials and the state auditor’s office revolved around election and other campaign-related violations.
“It’s nothing more than a partisan hack job by a very political state auditor who was pursuing Judge Horton for purely political purposes,” Owen recently told The Dispatch. Horton is a Democrat; state Auditor Dave Yost, a Republican.
Donahue said no one was out to get Horton. “This isn’t personal in any way,” Donahue said.
During the hearing, Owen said Horton did good work on the bench and in the community and asked Cosgrove to consider only fining Horton. He said other public officials have done worse things but suffered less punishment.
Judges Jennifer Brunner and Gary Tyack, who serve with Horton on the appeals court, supported their colleague during the sentence hearing.
Tyack said Horton has been doing “a marvelous job in trying to straighten his life.”