No jail time for Gwinn, despite prosecutor's request

Calling former Athens County Democratic Party chair Susan Gwinn "œa good citizen, a good lawyer and a good person" who may have broken state elections law without meaning to, a judge on Friday ignored a request by a special prosecutor to give Gwinn jail time or house arrest for having falsified two campaign finance reports, and instead fined her $1,000.

Judge William H. Wolff, Jr., was appointed to hear the case of Gwinn, who was indicted on multiple felony counts after investigation by a special prosecutor, Dave Yost of Delaware County.

Yost said after the sentencing in Athens County Common Pleas Court that he was "œdisappointed," having hoped that Wolff would require Gwinn to serve a short jail term, or at least have to wear an electronic monitor, "œto send a message to other politicians who might be tempted to try" what Gwinn did.

"I had hoped we could get 30 days," Yost admitted.

The maximum jail time for the two misdemeanor offenses of which Gwinn was convicted is 180 days.

Gwinn's attorney, Dennis W. McNamara, said he's satisfied with the sentence, though he stressed that while Gwinn accepts Wolff's finding of her guilt, she still maintains she never intentionally broke the law.

"We still believe that Susan was not guilty, but we recognize the judge's decision and why he made it," McNamara said. "We appreciate that the judge recognized that a misunderstanding of the law is different from some deliberate purpose to violate the law, and treated it accordingly."

Gwinn herself spoke before sentencing, apparently fighting back tears as she complained that Yost's long investigation and the criminal case against her has been an expensive and emotionally trying ordeal. Making it worse, she said, was what she called the "unrelenting" coverage of the case by local media, which she alleged included "attempts by the press to sneak down to my house and take pictures of me."

Yost was hired by Athens County to investigate Gwinn's handling of Democratic Party funds, at the request of Athens County Prosecutor C. David Warren.

She was initially charged with multiple felony counts, but during a bench trial late last year, Wolff first dropped bribery charges related to alleged vote-buying, then acquitted Gwinn of theft-related felonies having to do with alleged misuse of county Democratic Party funds. This left only the falsification counts, which are misdemeanors.

Wolff found Gwinn guilty on those two charges, ruling that she broke the law when she took about $27,000 in loans from her brother and another man to spend on her unsuccessful 2008 campaign for Athens County prosecutor, then listed the money on two campaign finance reports as loans to her campaign from herself, without naming the two men.

At Gwinn's sentencing hearing Thursday, Yost argued to Wolff that "nothing short of a term of incarceration, measured in days, not months," would send the proper message about the seriousness of Gwinn's offense. He suggested, however, that this could be a house arrest with an electronic monitor, rather than time in an actual cell.

Yost acknowledged that he could find no cases similar to Gwinn's in Ohio case law to provide guidance on sentencing, but stressed that this makes it all the more important for Wolff to "set the standard" and sentence her harshly.

He said Gwinn used her expertise as a lawyer "to attempt to put together a subterfuge," and in doing so violated her responsibilities as an attorney and a party official. (She stepped down as party chair after she was convicted.)

Her actions, Yost argued, endangered the transparency of political campaign finances in Ohio, and call for "a sanction beyond a slap on the wrist... This is not a matter of having fibbed about something of no consequence... She used (her) specific knowledge and skill to subvert the law she was supposed to uphold.

McNamara noted that he, like Yost, was unable to find a case similar to Gwinn's in criminal law. He added, however, that he was able to find cases in which politicians apparently did the same thing that Gwinn did, and in which the matter was dealt with administratively by the Ohio Secretary of State, which simply required the candidates to re-do their campaign finance reports in accordance with law.

"No one has been prosecuted to date for this to my knowledge, either," he said.

McNamara also stressed that while Gwinn did not list the donors properly, "there was not one penny that went unreported" on her finance documents, and Gwinn didn't profit personally from her actions. "It was not with some avarice or greed or bad purpose that she filled these things out incorrectly," he claimed.

Wolff made clear, however, that he's not ruling out the possibility that Gwinn, as she claims, believed she was doing nothing illegal in the way she filled out her finance reports.

The judge said that while he concluded Gwinn broke the law in the way she completed her finance reports, he was not convinced "that you... by doing that intended to engage in an unlawful action."

He added that he found some of Gwinn's explanations on the stand during her trial, about the way she would add her own money to her campaign fund on an as-needed basis, to be "credible and understandable."

Wolff stressed that "I do... take the misdemeanor charges of falsification very seriously," but promptly added that he believes Gwinn may be telling the truth when she says she didn't knowingly break the law.

"You may have thought it was correct to do it that way," he said.

Yost, who has told The Athens NEWS in the past that he believes his investigation and prosecution of Gwinn won't end up costing Athens County any money, recently submitted a bill for $8,188 worth of prosecution costs to the Athens County Clerk of Courts.

He asked Wolff to charge this to Gwinn, but the judge refused. Wolff also reduced the court costs Gwinn will have to pay, knocking $137 off a bill of $740. His reasoning was that the $137 was specifically related to the addition to her original indictment of two bribery charges, which he threw out during her trial.

Asked who will reimburse the Delaware County Prosecutor's office for the $8,000-plus prosecution costs, Yost at first said that this question will have to await the appeal he apparently expects.

Pressed on who will ultimately cover the cost when the case is resolved, he replied, "I don't know."

Gwinn herself seemed to hint during her pre-sentencing statement that she may appeal or otherwise continue to fight through the courts, telling Wolff, "My journey as an attorney on this case is probably not ended."

The courtroom was packed with about 25 people, of whom around half, according to McNamara, were Gwinn supporters who were ready to offer testimony to her good character if asked. Spectators included former Athens Mayor Ric Abel and former Athens County Municipal Judge Douglas Bennett, though neither man was asked if he was there to support Gwinn.