The scandalous Supreme Court

It's official: Two Ohio Supreme Court Justices are joining The Bust Up List.

An AI-generated image of “Ashamed Mike DeWine”

Taking care of your people through patronage is one of the oldest political tricks in the book. It’s something that Governor “Grandpa Sleepy Tea” DeWine understands well.

We saw this in the recent reappointment of Dan McCarthy, DeWine’s former legislative director who for some reason didn’t want his name to appear on documents relating to the largest bribery scheme in state history.

We didn’t learn that part until 15 months after his resignation in September 2021.

From Marty Schladen of ohiocapitaljournal.com in February:

In October 2019, as a battle raged over an attempt to repeal a $1.3 billion utility bailout, a FirstEnergy executive worked to keep the name of [then-Mike DeWine legislative director Dan McCarthy] off of a $10 million infusion of corporate cash into the fight. 

The executive, Vice President Michael Dowling, did so even after an assistant told him it would violate IRS rules to not list the DeWine aide on the transaction, according to text messages presented Tuesday in the federal corruption trial of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and lobbyist Matthew Borges. The men are accused of racketeering in a scheme to use $61 million from FirstEnergy in exchange for the massive bailout, most of which went to prop up the company’s failing nuclear and coal plants in order to make them attractive to buyers.

The revelation didn’t stop DeWine from reappointing the horse-owning McCarthy to the Ohio State Racing Commission in May. The State Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment last month. (When I asked State Senator Bill Demora [D-Columbus] yesterday why he voted in favor of McCarthy, he said the appointment got lost in the shuffle, and he got that one wrong.)

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Ohio Republican Supreme Court Justices Pat DeWine (left) and Joe Deters (right)

Loyalty to political personnel unsurprisingly extends to DeWine’s children. Take, for example, Grandpa Sleepy Tea’s son Pat DeWine, who hilariously sits on the Supreme Court simply because he shares the last name of his famous father.

Despite the lofty legal career, the younger DeWine has consistently dragged his Holy Rollin’ family’s name through the mud. Namely through his prodigious ability to cheat on multiple wives.

The latest episode came in August 2019, with DeWine already on the Supreme Court, when his second ex-wife accused him of “extreme cruelty” and adultery.

From Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Supreme Court Justice Pat DeWine’s wife filed for divorce on Friday, accusing her husband of “adultery, extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.”

In the filing, Rhonda Dayton DeWine also said she has struggled to support herself since February 2018, when she said ​her husband cut her off financially after “abruptly” moving out of the couple’s Cincinnati home.

“As a result of my limited resources, I have been unable to sustain even a semblance of the life to which my children and I have become accustomed,” she said.

According to a DeWine spokesman in that report, the DeWines had been living separately for “18 months,” which would put the move-out date around February 2018.

The moveout happened because, according to multiple Ohio political sources, DeWine got caught having an affair with Mary Stier, his “Senior Judicial Attorney” that followed him to the Supreme Court in January 2017 from the First District Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.

Pat DeWine, then-judge on the First District Court of Appeals, and Mary Stier on October 6th, 2016.

As you might imagine, fucking the help raises all sorts of ethical questions for a judge, even before being named in a highly public divorce for adultery and “extreme cruelty.”

But Pat DeWine was lucky enough to belong to a political dynasty. His family turned to Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters, who had already hired two of Pat DeWine’s sons as interns after being specifically asked by Justice DeWine.

From Scott Wartman of cincinnati.com in February 2023:

In 2017, Justice DeWine asked Deters to give his son an internship in the county prosecutor's office. That led to a complaint filed by a special disciplinary counsel against Justice DeWine, which was unanimously dismissed in April 2018.

At the time, Justice DeWine said he did not improperly use his office in asking Deters to hire his son, saying their families are longtime friends. Deters hired DeWine's son for a six-week internship at $11 an hour along with 37 others, according to the prosecutor's office.

Then, in January 2019, Deters hired Justice DeWine's senior staff attorney, Mary Stier, as an assistant prosecutor in the appellate division.

The job wasn't posted, something a spokesperson for the Hamilton County prosecutor's office said wasn't unusual. But based on communications obtained by The Enquirer between Deters and his staff, the hire seemed urgent.

"I want you to interview her immediately," Deters wrote in a one-line email Oct. 2, 2018, to one of the chief assistant prosecutors, Ronald Springman. Deters forwarded Stier's cover letter.

This should have been enough to cause Justice DeWine to resign in shame. But this is Ohio, which means the scandal didn’t even stop with a longtime family friend hiring his mistress to keep a scandal out of the press.

In December 2022, Governor DeWine appointed Deters to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Blatant cronyism aside, it was a remarkable appointment considering that Deters had never served as a judge in his entire political career.

Deters also brought his own scandals, too, which cleveland.com mentioned in its editorial blasting the appointment in March 2023:

DeWine also appointed Deters’ brother Dennis Deters to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in 2019. That was shortly after Dennis Deters lost election to the 1st Ohio Court of Appeals, the judgeship to which then-Gov. John Kasich had appointed him in 2017, replacing Pat DeWine after the younger DeWine’s election to the Ohio Supreme Court.

The 2004 scandals that caused Deters to step down from the state treasurer’s office also raise red flags. The scandals, which also featured pay-to-play influence-peddling allegations, also involved Matt Borges, now on trial in Cincinnati on House Bill 6 influence-peddling and corruption charges.

Borges, Deters’ former chief of staff and campaign fundraiser, eventually pleaded guilty in 2004 to misdemeanor unauthorized use of a public office. Also pleading guilty, to a misdemeanor election violation, was Eric Sagun, a lobbyist go-between who’d raised money for the Hamilton County GOP which Deters formerly headed.

That’s all without mentioning that Deters brought Stier, whom Justice DeWine had since officially upgraded to girlfriend, back to the Supreme Court.

It’s important to note that none of this will matter to the average Ohio voter when Deters runs for re-election next year. He will have the (R) next to his name, and that’s all that will matter until Ohioans at large realize it’s the Republicans enacting the policies they don’t like whenever we get the chance to vote on them.

Still, I think it’s important that DeWine and especially Deters (since he’s actively campaigning) should have to answer questions about the hiring of Stier at the very least.

Getting these guys on camera won’t be easy. They’re (rightfully) less accessible than the average state legislator. But I’m going to do my best to do what I do best and put them to the question.

If anyone reading this has any information about political fundraisers or the like that will be attended by Justice DeWine or Justice Deters, please respond to this email. You can also submit information anonymously through my Jotform.

Until then, consider this case an active investigation!

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