Following a jury trial in Butler County Common Pleas Court. the longtime auditor, who was reelected while under indictment, was found guilty of the fourth-degree felony. He was acquitted on three other felony charges and one misdemeanor charge.
The jury found fault with Reynolds allegedly trying to convince Lakota schools to build a golf academy at the golf course community where his family lives — using excess auditor fees Reynolds routinely returned to taxing bodies. Reynolds’ daughter also was a member of the Lakota Schools golf team at the time of the proposal.
The appeals court decision came in May after oral arguments in November 2023 in Columbus by 10th District Court of Appeal judges assigned to hear the case by the Ohio Supreme Court after all five 12th District judges recused themselves.
In the decision, the appellate judges said “the state presented insufficient evidence” and the trial court erred by denying the defendant’s criminal rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal. The appeals court court remanded the case back to the court with instructions to sustain the motion for acquittal and discharge Reynolds.
The lengthy appellate decision said in part: “The state’s contention that Reynolds attempted to use his influence as the county auditor to secure a proposal for a public contract that might have benefitted him — there is simply no other way to construe either the charges or the evidence supporting them,” the opinion states. “But even if the jury believed that Reynolds improperly attempted to secure a contract, his attempt failed — it was, in fact, thwarted by the only witness against him, (former Lakota Schools Treasurer Jenni) Logan.”
The state is asking the Supreme court to get involved by taking the case for review, arguing it raises a “question of great public importance” and to correct the (appeals court’s) “harmful interpretation of Ohio’s self-dealing law.”
In the latest appeal brief, the prosecution says if the appeals court’s ” flawed” decision stands, is sets a precedent, that public officials can only be convicted of corruption if the illegal contract is actually secured, not for just pressuring others to go along with the proposal of “illegal self-dealing.”
“If left standing, (the appeals court) decision blunts and important tool in the state’s anti-corruption toolbox. Public corruption protect the public’s confidence in their government as well as integrity in the administration of government itself,” Yost and Gaiser wrote.
Requiring the state to prove a corrupt plan was successful, “punishes the people who bravely resist a public official’s coercion to frustrate his corrupt scheme,” the prosecution said in the appeal.
In a response filed last month, Reynolds’ attorneys for the appellate proceedings, Aaron Herzig, said “the court of appeals decision is sound and this court need not disrupt it.”
“Because Reynolds only proposed what turned out to be a bad idea to a non-decisionmaker, and the idea quickly died, insufficient evidence existed for a necessary element of the offense,” Herzig wrote. “Without any precedent, the state asks this court to rewrite the statute to allow for the criminal prosecution of any public official who makes a suggestion that another person—who cannot even make a public contract—subjectively thinks might lead to a public contract in which the public official might have an improper interest. Such judicial legislation is not only improper, but irrational.”
There is no timeline on when the high court could decide on whether or not to accept the case.
The Butler County Sheriff’s Office investigated Reynolds for months before grand jury indictments were return. The case was tried by the attorney general’s office before a visiting judge.
Visiting Judge Daniel Hogan sentenced Reynolds to 30 days in jail but stayed it pending this appeal and five years probation. He also fined him $5,000 and ordered that he serve 100 hours of community service.
In February 2023, Butler County Republican Party Central Committee members selected Nancy Nix to replace Reynolds as auditor. He had been ousted from the job in December 2022.
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