Disciplinary panel recommends 18-month suspension without pay for Judge Timothy Grendell

By: Nick Evans

The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct has recommended an 18-month suspension without pay for Geauga County Probate Judge Timothy Grendell. The board added that six months of that suspension should be stayed so long as Grendell doesn’t engage in further misconduct, and that the judge should receive ethics education in the time being.

The matter is now in the hands of the Ohio Supreme Court.

Grendell is a powerful and well-connected political figure in Northeastern Ohio. He served as a Republican state representative and then senator from 2001-2011, before being appointed to the Geauga County bench by Gov. John Kasich. His wife Diane Grendell, also a Republican, served two stints in the Ohio House and as an Ohio appeals court judge.

The complaint against Grendell focuses on three incidents — a private custody dispute in which the judge ordered two boys into juvenile detention for refusing to see their father, an episode where a spat between the judge and county auditor escalated to the point Grendell threatened to hold police officers in contempt, and the judge’s testimony in favor of his wife’s legislation.

In an emailed statement, Grendell said, “I respectfully disagree with the decision,” before reiterating his side of the three incidents. The judge described his years of service and volunteer work, noting Geauga county voters reelected him even after the events in the complaint occurred.

“I will appeal the OBPC decision to the Ohio Supreme Court with confidence of a better outcome,” he insisted.

The custody charges

The bulk of the board’s 88-page recommendation is devoted to Hartman-Glasier custody case. Stacy Hartman and Grant Glasier had three kids together, and after a divorce they’d been following a parenting plan that had the kids staying with Hartman for school purposes. After incidents in which the kids said Glasier was violent they refused to participate in further visitation.

When the case landed in Grendell’s court in August of 2019, the board notes, the judge “latched onto” a single sentence in a psychological evaluation “and it became his oft repeated mantra, although he repeatedly misquoted it.”

The evaluation stated parental alienation “can” have serious consquences, but the board noted in Grendell’s telling, alienation “would” have serious consequences.

And that hasn’t changed. In his statement to Ohio Capital Journal, Grendell again incorrectly insisted the report showed “letting the boys terminate their relationship with their father would cause them permanent psychological harm.”

The board goes on to describe a handful instances where Grendell said on the record, in this case that forcing the kids into visitation would be counterproductive. But that’s exactly what he did a few months later.

In May of 2020, Glasier was prepared to withdraw his motion for custody. But once the hearing began, Grendell refused to accept his motion and instead “converted” it to one enforcing Glasier’s right to parenting time. The board states Grendell “cited no applicable law or rule that permitted him to do this.” Neither Hartman nor Glasier had counsel present for the hearing. When Hartman tried to submit evidence, the judge gave a Glasier a nudge reminding he could object and warning “there’s probably a lot of hearsay in there.”

That hearing set the stage for the incident that landed their two boys in juvenile detention, and the board is unsparing in its criticism of Grendell’s actions. They note the judge failed to provide due process, gave one side legal advice, disregarded expert recommendations and earlier, private interviews he had with the children themselves. Grendell also acted contrary to his previous assertions that forcing visitation wouldn’t work and offered little to ensure the kids felt safe.

Hartman dropped off her boys a few days later with Grendell’s constable overseeing the exchange. After Hartman left the boys, 15 and 13 years old at the time, they freaked out. The constable called Grendell, and judge called another official to prepare a spot in juvenile detention.

According the board’s timeline this happened just five minutes after the drop off was scheduled to occur. The constable then called Hartman and put her on speakerphone with the boys, and told her she needed to encourage them to go with their dad. When the boys still refused, the constable called Grendell again and the judge authorized “unruly” charges because the boys weren’t obeying their mother.

All of this happened in the space of 22 minutes.

Grendell ordered the boys held separate from each other and apart from the general population because they were “co-defendants.” He prohibited any contact with their mother “because she was the ‘victim’ of their unruliness.”

The board rejected those justifications as “nonsensical” because the boys were in close contact for three hours before being booked. They added Grendell’s claims of acting in their best interests are “patently facetious.”

“Worst of all, the restrictions were purely punitive and added additional trauma to the already traumatic experience,” the board added.

The boys were held for 72 hours over the weekend and then left in a locked conference room at the court all day — the older boy in handcuffs. Grendell claimed he moved a formal hearing for the boys earlier in the day and then cancelled it altogether.

But the judge never told Hartman or the officer watching the boys. The officer described seeing the judge in street clothes and headed for the exit at 3:00 pm. He asked what he was supposed to do with the boys.

The officer told the board the judge “just said, ‘release them to the mother’ and he kept walking.”

The board also criticized Grendell for relying heavily on informal hearings without sworn testimony and an evidentiary record. Although juvenile rules allow informal proceedings, they argued, that can’t be basis for a ruling — otherwise how could anyone appeal?

Stacking it all up, they argued the judge showed “a decided ignorance of the law at best, and an intentional disregard of the law at worst,” adding he was “simply acting in an arbitrary manner to achieve his goals without even considering the law.” Further they argued his repeated refusal to accept responsibility for his own errors demonstrates “more than mere mistakes in the exercise of judicial discretion.”

The auditor dispute and legislative testimony

Geauga county auditor Charles Walder first got his job by appointment — the previous auditor resigned following a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandal involving an IT officer. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Walder instituted more stringent accounting policies, but those measures rubbed Grendell the wrong way.

The two offices have been in running dispute ever since. It boiled over in June of 2019.

The auditor had previously asked court employees to conduct business with the office through a particular employee, but two court officials went to the office in person to inquire about an unpaid invoice. The court officials were asked to leave and took a stack of paperwork that needed signatures. Those documents were originals, though, and the auditor’s office reported them as a theft.

When the local police got involved Grendell lashed out, threatening one officer with contempt charges on a public street in his judicial robes. He followed that up by visiting the police department and trying to warn the chief off from getting involved by alluding to federal charges. Grendell then went to a Geauga County Tea Party meeting and encouraged the attendees to pursue malfeasance actions against the auditor and local prosecutor.

In his statement, Grendell noted charges eventually brought against his staffers by a special prosecutor were thrown out.

Still, the board described Grendell’s testimony downplaying the incident and defending his motives were “simply not credible.”

In June of 2020, Grendell chose to testify in favor of his wife’s Truth in COVID Statistics legislation. But judges, who represent a different branch of government, face a high bar in justifying appearances before other governmental bodies. The Ohio Code of Judicial Conduct states a judge shouldn’t appear voluntarily unless their input has to do with “the law, legal system or the administration of justice,” their judicial experience gives them particular expertise or when they’re representing their own economic or legal interests.

The board noted he appeared voluntarily and testified in his capacity as a judge.

The central demand of the bill was to require state officials to report daily COVID statistics rather than just cumulative figures. Grendell asserted that amounted to reporting “half the facts — the scary half.”

The problem, as the board rightly pointed out, is “the premise of (Grendell’s) argument was simply wrong.” State officials were already reporting daily and cumulative figures. Faced with Ohio’s COVID-19 dashboard in the disciplinary hearing Grendell conceded he didn’t know it included daily case counts.

“Nonetheless,” the board noted, “he refused to concede that he was wrong when he accused (the Ohio Department of Health) of fear mongering and manipulating the numbers.”

Grendell attempted to justify his testimony by arguing that public perceptions of the pandemic had affected his court. The board dismissed this idea as “tenuous, at best, and for the most part, based on inaccurate or untrue information.” Despite claiming “firsthand” knowledge of rising domestic violence cases, Grendell acknowledged his testimony was based on one news article and anecdotal conversations. His own court’s unruly cases “had decreased, rather than increased as he claimed.”

In his statement to Ohio Capital Journal, he again described his testimony as laying out “the problems that the State’s publicly providing less than full and accurate information about Covid was causing courts and the community.” He added that he has a right to speak under the state and federal constitution.

The sanction

In weighing aggravating and mitigating factors, the board noted it received 60 letters on Grendell’s behalf in addition to the testimony of three character witnesses. But they also noted many of those individuals have connections to the judge either in his courtroom, or as part of professional and civic organizations. Only one of those witnesses said they’d reviewed the case.

Meanwhile, the board said several others offered the same description of Grendell independent of one another — a bully. They heard that from at least eight different witnesses including fellow county officials and law enforcement.

The board drew links to other disciplinary cases in which judges improperly incarcerated individuals and coerced them toward a pre-determined outcome.

“Perhaps even more concerning,” they wrote, “is (Grendell’s) utter failure to recognize and acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct. Respondent not only apparently believes he has done nothing wrong but testified that he would do it again.”

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Disciplinary panel recommends 18-month suspension without pay for Judge Timothy Grendell