Ohio Supreme Court suspends judge
JUDGE CONVICTED: Judge Tracie Hunter was suspended without pay by the Ohio Supreme Court for her conviction of unlawful interest in a public contract.
Brad Matthews | WatchdogWire.com
Embattled Judge Tracie Hunter was suspended without pay from her position Tuesday, by the Ohio State Supreme Court after her conviction on Oct. 14 on charges of unlawful interest in a public contract.
She had been suspended with pay in January, when her she was indicted.
While the jury returned a decision on the unlawful interest charge, it was hung on eight other felony counts, including “two counts of forgery, two counts of tampering with evidence, two counts of theft in office, one count of misusing a credit card and an additional count of having unlawful interest in a public contract’, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier.
The charges stem from accusations that she used her powers to obtain the medical records of a teenager that her brother, Steven Hunter, had punched when he was a corrections officer in the juvenile justice system. He was fired for this incident. The judge provided the documents to her brother before his termination hearing.
The Cincinnati Business Courier said, “The evidence in the tampering and forgery charges related to alleged backdating of judicial entries to reflect that they had been created and signed on a different date than they actually were. The theft in office counts involved alleged unauthorized use of public funds (through a county credit card) to pay for court filing fees.”
The court’s order suspended Hunter from practicing law without pay for “an interim period.”
“It is further ordered that respondent immediately cease and desist from the practice of law in any form and that she is forbidden to appear on behalf of another before any court, judge, commission, board, administrative agency, or other public authority. It is further ordered that effective immediately, respondent is forbidden to counsel, advise, or prepare legal instruments for others or in any manner perform legal services for others,” the court ordered.
