Indicted judge signed off on $200K to clerk’s office where son worked

“He never said anything absolutely directly to me, but there was definitely implications that he gave money to the clerk’s office for IT work and that was where my salary was coming,” Robert Piergies told the Dayton Daily News last month.

The elder Piergies, indicted with Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Mike Foley, faces three counts of having an unlawful interest in a public contract. The Ohio Supreme Court removed Piergies from the bench at the municipal court’s western division following his indictment and he remains suspended with pay.

Piergies’ and Foley’s attorneys did not return a request for comment regarding the fund transfers.

Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber’s office began investigating Foley’s office in 2022. Faber said the charges against Piergies relate to his son’s employment.

Robert Piergies worked for Montgomery County from 2018 through June this year, first for the county municipal court — where his father was an administrative judge until his suspension — and then in 2020 for the clerk’s office, where he worked as a desktop support technician.

A 2020 position management request obtained by the newspaper through a records request to the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office payroll section shows that a software technician position in the Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Office was replaced with a desktop support technician position.

“Honestly, it just makes me sad,” Robert Piergies told the newspaper this week. “I feel like they did away with a software technician position because of me. And when I was in that job, I knew how much they could have used a software tech.”

Annually from 2021 to 2024, $50,000 in interfund transfers went to the Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Office from the Montgomery County Municipal Court for “Information Technology support and other information technology services for the Municipal Judicial staff,” according to county records.

Robert Piergies’ personnel records show that the highest wage he earned during his time at the clerk’s office was roughly $26.78 per hour.

James Piergies signed off on all four fund transfers.

James Piergies was indicted in July along with Foley, who faces a dozen counts including charges related to unlawful interest in a public contract, theft in office, and misdemeanor counts of solicitation of political contributions from public employees and prohibition against partisan political activity.

Both men entered pleas of not guilty and are awaiting trial.