Judge Says ODC Complaint a Violation of Constitutional Rights
On Nov. 30, the legal team representing Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell submitted a response to a 61-page complaint filed Nov. 10 with the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct.
On Nov. 30, the legal team representing Geauga County Probate/Juvenile Court Judge Tim Grendell submitted a response to a 61-page complaint filed Nov. 10 with the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct.
The complaint charged Grendell with four counts — the first two of which revolve around two families whose custody battles played out against the backdrop of a pandemic.
The third and fourth charges revolve around a running dispute with Geauga County Auditor Chuck Walder, and testimony the judge gave to an Ohio House committee in support of a bill introduced by his wife, state Rep. Diane Grendell.
Side-by-side view of the complaint and response
In May 2020, Diane introduced House Bill 624, also known as the Truth in COVID Statistics Bill. The ODC complaint said Diane alleged Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Dr. Amy Acton, then director of the Ohio Department of Health, were misreporting COVID statistics “to create an atmosphere of fear to justify the state’s COVID response.”
Grendell testified before the Ohio House State and Local Government Committee in favor of the bill on June 2, 2020. He later said he was asked to testify by his wife.
“And when your state representative asks you to do that, especially when you share a bed with that state representative, you can’t say no, so I gave the testimony,” he is alleged to have said during a public appearance in August of 2020.
In Grendell’s answer, he admitted the quote was accurate or mostly accurate, adding the comments were “an obvious and apparent use of humor.”
The date of Grendell’s testimony appears elsewhere in the four-count complaint, as part of the narrative surrounding his handling of a case involving two brothers who refused to see their estranged father, whom they accused of behaving violently toward them. On May 29, 2020, the boys, aged 13 and 15, were ordered to the Portage-Geauga County Juvenile Detention Center in Ravenna after they refused visitation with their father.
In his answer to the ODC complaint, a defiant Grendell paints a picture of a mother whom he said “seriously alienated” her children from their father — yet, in a twist of irony, he sent her children to detention for refusing her wishes that they meet with their father on May 29, according to the complaint.
Grendell’s armed constable, John Ralph, carried out the judge’s orders and was present when deputies of the Geauga County Sheriff’s Office arrived to handcuff the children after they had been dropped off at the Geauga County Safety Center to be taken to their father’s house. Ralph told the mother it would be better if she left the children with him.
After their refusal to proceed to their father’s home and after being told her children were being sent to juvenile detention, the mother returned and “asked how he could do such a thing” to her children, according to the complaint.
“I am just taking orders from Judge Grendell,” Ralph is alleged to have said.
However, in his answer to the accusation, Grendell said he never instructed Ralph to file charges and that Ralph, alone, was responsible for filing the unruly charges against the brothers. In response to Geauga County Prosecutor Jim Flaiz’s choice not to pursue unruly charges, Grendell also said he never invited Flaiz to prosecute the case.
“The boys were not placed in custody because they allegedly refused to go with their father during his court-ordered parenting time; but rather, for their alleged ongoing disobedience of their mother, which, if true, would constitute unruly conduct under (Ohio Revised Code),” Grendell said in his answer, adding handcuffing the children was the policy of the sheriff’s office and not the court.
The mother attempted to come to the courthouse June 2 to apply for a court-appointed attorney to represent her, however, the court was closed. The ODC complaint states Grendell closed the court at noon in order to make his testimony on his wife’s bill in Columbus.
“(Grendell) claimed to close the courthouse at noon due to a planned Black Lives Matter protest scheduled on Chardon Square; however, no other public office closed and the protesters never met on the square,” the ODC complaint added in a footnote.
In his response, Grendell said he authorized the closure of the court the day before out of safety concerns expressed to him by his court administrator.
“(Grendell) denies he ‘claimed’ to close the courthouse at noon due to a planned Black Lives Matter protest scheduled on Chardon Square — he admits that was the reason he made the decision the day beforehand, to close the court the next day — based on the best information that was available at that time,” his response said. “Namely, two days earlier, a protest outside the Statehouse in Columbus had turned violent and destructive and a similar protest was scheduled to occur the next afternoon in Chardon Square, directly between the court’s offices and the staff parking area.”
The court was closed once more over safety concerns in September of that year, he added, and the House testimony had been planned for weeks without any intention of closing the courthouse.
Grendell said his testimony before the House committee did not violate any disciplinary rules. He cited a letter from retired Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeiffer, now the executive director of the Ohio Judicial Conference.
“(I) cannot comprehend that your testimony or work on either proposal would in any respect violate … the Code of Judicial Conduct,” Grendell quotes Pfeiffer as saying. “As juvenile and probate judge for Geauga County, you hold unique responsibilities for the wellbeing of both children and the elderly. If anything, your expressed concerns regarding COVID reporting policy was ahead of many so-called health experts and looking now in the rear-view mirror, critical mistakes were made to the long-term detriment of childhood education and the mental health of all.”
“Gamesmanship”
In his answer, Grendell responds to the third count in the ODC complaint, which involves a longstanding conflict between his court and the office of Geauga County Auditor Chuck Walder. The complaint rehashes a June 2019 incident involving Grendell, Court Administrator Kim Laurie and Fiscal Compliance Officer Seth Miller, who were accused of trespassing and removing papers and files from Walder’s office, culminating in a public spat on Chardon Square involving Chardon Police Department Lt. Troy Duncan.
Grendell’s employees treated Walder’s staff “professionally and respectfully,” while Walder refused to pay court vendors, raised “specious allegations of fraud against multiple court officials and employees” and engaged, along with his staff, in “other similar examples of gamesmanship,” Grendell said.
The ODC complaint accuses Grendell of misleading the audience at a Geauga County Tea Party event held roughly a month after the June 2019 conflict, including telling the group Walder and employees of his office were making unfounded criminal allegations against the judge and his court staff.
“I have to say, I’m disappointed that (Walder’s) not here because I would like to have a chance to talk to him about some of these events and I find his excuse that there’s some sort of criminal proceeding highly questionable because, number one, he’s not being investigated, he won’t be investigated because he’s protected by his buddy the county prosecutor,” Grendell told the tea party, according to the complaint.
In his response, Grendell said he was unaware at the time of the tea party event that a criminal investigation of Miller and Laurie was ongoing. Grendell also said he was unaware of the “speculations” in a July 2019 Geauga County Maple Leaf story, in which sources familiar to the investigation said prosecutors were discussing the appointment of a special prosecutor to review the matter.
As the appointment was eventually made under seal, Grendell, Miller and Laurie did not find out about the appointment of the special prosecutor until nearly 10 months after that article was published, when they were served criminal complaints, his response said.
Miller and Laurie were forced to undergo a criminal trial and were ultimately dismissed by Judge Forrest Burt in Laurie’s case and by the jury in Miller’s case – resulting in the “exact waste of taxpayer money that (Grendell) discussed,” he said in his response.
“However, it was unthinkable to (Grendell) to anticipate at the time he addressed the tea party that those matters were under review — and no one would ultimately learn they would be prosecuted for nearly one year later,” he added.
Grendell further denied any attempts to mislead the audience into thinking Walder and his employees were making unfounded criminal allegations.
To the contrary, unfounded criminal allegations were made against Miller and Laurie, and his court staff were “personally and professionally maligned in the media,” he said.
The Chardon Police Department, sheriff’s office and the Chardon law director had, by that point, assured Grendell they did not see Miller or Laurie’s actions as theft or trespassing.
“(Grendell) indicated truthfully that he did not believe there was an ongoing criminal investigation,” his response said.
“Proper and Ethically Appropriate”
In his closing statements of defense, Grendell said he complied with the professional conduct rules and his conduct was both proper and ethically appropriate.
“(Grendell) admits he followed the law, protected children, spoke truthfully, exercised his constitutionally-protected rights of free speech — particularly as they pertained to protecting the public’s confidence in the court,” his response said.
The ODC complaint against Grendell “contains a series of factually and legally inaccurate allegations” and inaccurately characterizes Ohio juvenile law and procedures, he said his response.
Grendell directly addressed the first two counts in the ODC complaint, both related to his handling of two separate custody cases. In both cases, Grendell said the complaint attempted to substitute the judgment of the lawyer who filed it for that of a judge who complied with Ohio law.
That responsibility is only authorized by an appellate court and, therefore, violates process and exceeds the lawyer’s authority, Grendell said in his response, adding the complaint violates both the Ohio Constitution and the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution and the Ohio Constitution.
A three-member panel has been appointed for Grendell’s hearing and comprises Highland County Court of Common Pleas Judge Rocky Coss, Wooster attorney Peggy Schmitz and Columbus attorney David Hardymon. No further information regarding the case on the Ohio Supreme Court docket is available at this time.
