Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office filed a court motion Friday requesting a county judge to force Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly to comply with a subpoena requiring the sheriff to give up confidential informants.
Kelly, balking at having to disclose that information to a special grand jury called together by the attorney general, said the state is overstepping its bounds.
“I think it’s irresponsible, unprecedented, and I believe releasing information on confidential informants jeopardizes the lives of the confidential informants, their families, law enforcement officers and certain residents of Athens County,” Kelly said.
Calling the motion “crazy,” Kelly added he has nothing to hide from the state.
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn asked DeWine to review several allegations of wrongdoing against Kelly. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, a branch of the attorney general’s office, had since opened a special grand jury investigation that led to Kelly being served four subpoenas, filed in court Aug. 30.
Kelly has in the past said he’ll comply, according to a previous Post article, but now he says he wants the subpoena requiring he share his confidential informants to be voided.
Kelly wrote a letter to Common Pleas Judge George P. McCarthy on Sept. 9 requesting he quash the subpoena. But the next day, Kelly wrote a letter to Blackburn asking that he “prepare the following motion on my behalf.”
In that Sept. 10 letter to Blackburn, Kelly said McCarthy asked that a motion to quash come from the prosecutor.
But there has been no formal motion to do so, according to court documents.
Instead, Blackburn wrote to Special Prosecutor James Roberts, of the bureau, later that day. He wrote that Kelly asked for the motion, but in the letter asked Roberts to “please be more specific as to date, informant number, or case officer” with regards to the subpoena requesting information about informants.
“The sheriff is concerned that the release of all confidential informants could have a negative impact on future recruitment of confidential informants … Would it be possible to narrow your request?” Blackburn wrote.
Essentially, because Kelly asked Blackburn to help him not give up his informants, the state felt compelled to ask a judge to force Kelly to comply.
The motion from the state submitted Friday argues, “in order to complete the investigation, certain claims of an investigative target must be examined for corroboration or lack thereof.”
Adding another ripple, Blackburn, according to information Kelly posted on Facebook, wrote to Kelly there were no legal grounds to quash the subpoena, and that, “The Athens County Prosecutors Office represents the Office of the Athens County Sheriff and not you individually. The Office of County Prosecutor is not able to provide legal advice or represent Patrick Kelly.”
Being that Blackburn declined to comment specifically on the case, it was not immediately clear if he was suggesting he’d stop accepting requests for legal counsel for the sheriff.
“I’m not going to engage in a war of words with the sheriff … I’m not able provide Sheriff Kelly with legal advice and I’m not going to spend time on Sheriff Kelly’s issues,” Blackburn said, without commenting further.
Kelly said the investigation is not only taking him away from his day-to-day law enforcement work, but it also threatens the safety of county residents.
Kelly added he feels let down by Blackburn.
Dan Tierney, spokesman for DeWine’s office, declined to comment in the interest of protecting the ongoing investigation.
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