Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly was indicted Friday on 25 charges, including 23 felonies, by a special grand jury Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine convened last year, capping a wide-scooped state investigation that has been under way for more than a year.
Kelly can keep his job for now, DeWine said during a press conference in Athens, because he has not been arrested — or found guilty — of any crimes. But per a mandate in Ohio law, DeWine said his office would have to ask the Ohio Supreme Court to initiate proceedings to suspend Kelly from holding office.
“When any elected official is indicted it is a sad, sad day,” DeWine said at the conference, which was held at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Athens branch on East State Street.
“I take no pleasure in this,” he said.
Kelly, 63, was indicted on:
— 13 counts of theft in office
— four counts of theft
— one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity
— one count of money laundering
— one count of tampering with evidence
— one count of tampering with records
— one count of perjury
— one count of failure to keep cashbook
— one count of obstructing official business
— and one count of dereliction of duty.
All are felonies ranging from the first through the fifth degree except for obstructing official business and dereliction of duty, which are both misdemeanors.
All of Kelly’s alleged offenses occurred between 2008 and 2013.
In the 14 counts of theft in office, he is accused of using money from campaign donors for the Elect and Re-elect Pat Kelly campaigns, the law enforcement trust fund and others for personal reasons, DeWine said.
The value of the property obtained in each charge is “more than $1,000 but less than $7,500,” and he “used personal contacts in removing county property,” DeWine said, adding that he could not comment further on what Kelly used the money for and anything else he might have allegedly stole from his office.
Kelly maintained his innocence to reporters in interviews and on his Facebook pages, where he sounded off against DeWine. He said he plans to plead not guilty to all counts when he is indicted in Athens County Common Pleas Court on Feb. 10.
He said he was confident in his staff and that if the allegations against him were true, people in his office would have known.
“I have honorable people surrounding me — deputies and detectives,” Kelly said in his office to reporters. “And if there was a problem with their sheriff, they would have been the first to investigate.”
The state became involved in the case when Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn alerted DeWine to an allegation that Kelly assaulted an Albany man. Blackburn did so because of the inherent conflict of interest between the prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices.
That snowballed into a wide-ranging investigation by the Bureau of Criminal Investigation & Identification, which is a branch of the attorney general’s office.
“We we're asked to come in and check out an alleged assault,” DeWine said. “Once we got into the case it was evident there was a lot more there.”
Although Blackburn said in the release that his office will not comment on the facts of the indictment because it is under the Attorney General’s office’s authority, Blackburn said he respects the grand jury’s decision and stated that this case is no different from any other in terms of deeming the defendant innocent until proven guilty.
“The cloud of allegations have now resulted in formal charges, it is time for the rest of Athens County to move forward from these illegalities and heal the reputation of law enforcement,” Blackburn said, adding that his office will not be involved in Kelly’s prosecution.
Though Kelly is free to continue his sheriff duties while awaiting his trial in county court, but it will be the Ohio Supreme Court that will decide if Kelly should be booted out of office.
County Commissioner Charlie Adkins, who attended DeWine’s press conference, said it’s "my understanding if Supreme Court takes him out of office, we, the County Commissioners, would appoint, and then (we) and the Democratic Party would fill the vacancy. That's my understanding.”
The court should file within the next several days, DeWine said, adding that Kelly’s future as Athens County Sheriff is “up to the (Ohio Supreme) court at this point.”
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About 1:00 p.m.
Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly was served a 25-count indictment Friday, the sheriff confirmed to The Post, and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine will hold a press conference from Athens at 2:30 p.m.
Kelly said he plans to plead "not guilty" on Feb. 10, when he said the arraignment will be held in Athens County.
A special grand jury believed to be hearing testimony regarding a state probe of Kelly and his office reconvened in Athens on Friday morning, and DeWine, who called the grand jury to convene in June, was spotted inside the Athens County courthouse.
Kelly and other officials have testified in front of the grand jury on-and-off since June. Numerous subpoenas were issued in September when Kelly was asked to give up confidential informants, provide information about any and all investigations targeting public officials, show how many hours he has worked in the past three years and explain why copper wiring allegedly went missing under his watch.
Kelly said the subpoenas from state investigators was political “posturing,” adding that during a Bureau of Criminal Investigations search of his office over the summer, investigators obtained copies of all Kelly’s hard drives and already obtained the documents they had subpoenaed for.
The special grand jury was convened amid ongoing accusations of Kelly's office illegally dumping county records.
Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn referred the accusations against Kelly to a special prosecutor in DeWine's office because of the natural conflict of interest that exists between Kelly's office and Blackburn’s.
Blackburn, for all intents and purposes, is Kelly's attorney, and one could claim that any investigation into Kelly by Blackburn's office would be biased.
Blackburn said in June that he and Kelly would be asked to testify about "several" ongoing investigations, one of which could be the records dumping.
More information on exactly what grounds the state is investigating the sheriff on isn’t likely to turn up until after the grand jury has concluded, at which time it is likely the state or Blackburn’s office would organize a press conference.
“There is one investigation, but it is not limited in scope,” said DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney in a previous Post article from September. He declined to comment further because grand jury testimony and any related investigations are meant to stay under wraps.
Also noteworthy: Blackburn referred to DeWine’s office accusations that Kelly assaulted an Albany man outside of a campaign fundraiser for Kelly’s 2012 reelection campaign.
County and city officials have said they have grown increasingly more frustrated with the investigation and argued that, over time, the it could give the county and city of Athens a bad name — but Kelly has been the most outspoken critic of the investigation's merits, and of DeWine, personally.
“If you’ve got something on me, Mike DeWine, then charge me,” he said in a previous Post article from October. “If you don’t, then crawl back in your friggin’ hole underneath the curb and stay the heck out of my county...
“I’ve done nothing wrong."
