Greg Scott, legal director of Montgomery County Juvenile Court, said Kirts was “relieved immediately” of his work on a half-dozen juvenile cases this week after his office was asked about the offense by the Dayton Daily News.
State court guidelines require criminal background checks of guardians ad litem “and investigation of information relevant to the applicant’s fitness” to serve.
Scott said the court did not conduct a criminal background check of Kirts because he is a licensed lawyer in Ohio “and in good standing with the state supreme court.”
He added that “this has given us good cause to take a good look” at our application process.
"I don’t want to see anyone go through what I went through.”
After graduating from University of Dayton Law School in 1997, Kirts embarked on a promising legal career that began as an assistant prosecutor for the city of Dayton.
In 2001, Kirts moved back to his home state of Illinois, where he soon became counsel to the state department of commerce and later an attorney for the Republican staff of the Illinois House of Representatives. In January 2009, he became the top attorney for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police.
All that would change abruptly in June 2009, when Kirts was arrested in a Springfield, Ill. park restroom for exposing himself and asking for a sexual favor from an undercover police officer while reaching for the officer’s groin. Kirts was arrested and sentenced to a year of supervision for public indecency.
In December, Kirts left Illinois and set up private practice in Dayton and began applying for positions with area juvenile courts as a “guardian ad litem” — a paid court appointee who works with children caught in custody battles or suffering from abuse or neglect.
Kirts said Thursday he sought out that work because he wanted to help children escape the abuse that he suffered as a child. “I accept the events and consequences of my life,” Kirts said, “but the abuse I suffered at a tender age, I don’t want to see anyone — whether they’re an adult or a child — go through what I went through.”
Montgomery County Juvenile Court Administrator Jim Cole described the guardian ad litem positions “as a separate set of eyes to review cases and make recommendations to the court” regarding custody and placement of children in troubled families. The court has 96 attorneys on its appointment list, although not all serve as guardians ad litem, he said.
Under Ohio court rules, guardians ad litem must “interview the child and observe the child with each parent, foster parent, guardian or physical custodian and conduct at least one interview with the child where none of these individuals is present.”
In Montgomery County, guardian ad litems are paid $40 an hour for out-of-court work and $50 an hour for in-court service. Cole said Kirts had been paid $1,580 by the court since March. He was removed Tuesday from all juvenile case work in Montgomery County, court officials said.
Kirts did similar work for the Greene County Juvenile Court, but officials there were not available for comment Thursday.
The Montgomery Count Juvenile Court was unaware of Kirts’ offense because it does not do criminal background checks on attorneys who sign up to be guardians ad litem, said Juvenile Court Administrator Jim Cole. State guidelines adopted in January, however, say local courts are responsible to “conduct, or cause to be conducted, a criminal and civil background check and investigation of information relevant to the applicant’s fitness to serve as a guardian ad litem.”
By comparison, the Montgomery County Children’s Services Board fingerprints and conducts criminal background checks on everyone working with the agency’s charges, whether they are staff, volunteers or contract employees, said spokeswoman Ann Stevens. Kirts’ offense “would have been problematic” for the agency, she said.
Attorneys wanting to be guardians ad litem in Montgomery County fill out an application that asks whether they have ever been convicted of a crime involving a minor and if they have ever faced disciplinary action against their state license. Kirts answered “no” to both questions, Cole said.
The records of the Illinois Bar Association show no actions against Kirts.
Greg Scott, legal director of Montgomery County Juvenile Court, said the court devised its screening process with help from a variety of legal organizations and social agencies, including the Children’s Services Board. “I just look at this as an opportunity to revisit this and call the whole group together again,” Scott said.
Kirts did not report his offense to the Ohio Bar Association before reactivating his Ohio license. However, bar association rules require only that felony convictions be reported, state officials said. Even so, John Ruffolo, head of the Dayton Bar Association’s Unauthorized Practices Committee, said he would refer Kirts’ case to the state’s investigations committee.
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