Judge Ickes Removed Over Hidden Stepson Conflict

The Conflict He Never Put on the Record

Ickes’s stepson, Fremont Police Officer Christian Ortolani, was the arresting officer in a 2022 drive-by shooting case against Curtis Elkins and a key law enforcement witness in a separate assault case against the same defendant. Ickes presided over pretrial proceedings in both and over the full trial in the assault case. Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct requires a judge to disqualify from any proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, and to put the basis for disqualification on the record so the parties can decide whether to waive it. Ickes did neither. He sentenced Elkins to six to nine years in prison without ever telling Elkins, his attorney, or the prosecution that the state’s witness was his stepson.

The pattern repeated a year later. Leroy Stratton was indicted after livestreaming himself sexually assaulting an 18-month-old child, and Ortolani was again the arresting officer. Stratton’s attorney asked Ickes to recuse once he learned of the relationship. Ickes refused, telling the defense that Ortolani’s role in the case did not warrant it. Stratton was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.

How a Hidden Relationship Undid Two Convictions

In the Elkins drive-by case, Elkins himself flagged the relationship and asked Ickes to step aside. Ickes did, and prosecutors dropped that case after an eyewitness left the state. But the assault case had already gone to trial and sentencing with the conflict undisclosed. On appeal, the Sixth District Court of Appeals reversed the assault conviction, finding an “unconstitutional potential for bias” because nothing in the record showed Elkins or his lawyer knew Ortolani was the judge’s stepson.

Stratton’s appeal was pending when the Sixth District decided Elkins’s case. Relying on that precedent, the appellate court found the undisclosed relationship violated Stratton’s due process rights, vacated his life sentence, and sent the case back. Two serious felony convictions, both obtained after full trials, came undone. Not because of any factual dispute about guilt, but because the judge who presided never told anyone he had a personal stake in believing the arresting officer.

The Appearance-of-Impartiality Standard

Judges do not have to be proven biased to be disqualified. Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct, like the ABA Model Code that most states follow, disqualifies a judge whenever impartiality “might reasonably be questioned,” a far lower bar than proving actual bias. A close family relationship to a testifying officer is a textbook example.

The rule also requires the judge to put the basis for disqualification on the record, so the parties can decide with full information whether to waive it. A judge does not get to make that call alone and quietly.

It Was Not Just the Recusals

The disciplinary case went well beyond the two conflicted prosecutions. For eight months, staff said Ickes referred to the Stratton child rape case by a lewd nickname that one employee called “disgusting.” During Stratton’s trial, he exchanged text messages from the bench with courtroom staff mocking a prospective juror. The Board also found he made sexualized comments to a pregnant assignment commissioner, used a racial slur within earshot of a defendant, and disparaged a probation officer who had been injured on the job. The complaint traces back to July 2024, when courthouse employees filed harassment complaints and an outside human-resources investigation documented what investigators called a sexualized and unprofessional workplace culture.

Why the Court Went Further Than the Board

The Board of Professional Conduct found Ickes committed 10 of the 17 charged violations but recommended a one-year suspension, fully stayed, meaning he could have kept his seat as long as he stayed out of trouble. The Supreme Court rejected that as too soft. Chief Justice Sharon Kennedy, writing for the majority, said judges are held to a higher standard than other lawyers, and that Ickes’s failure to resign after the Board’s findings showed the higher standard alone would not deter him. The Court wrote that his silence about the conflict “caused incalculable harm to the public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.”

The two dissenters would have gone easier. Justice R. Patrick DeWine favored a one-year suspension with six months stayed, and Justice Joseph Deters favored a two-year suspension, fully stayed, conditioned on anti-harassment training. The majority imposed the full two years with nothing stayed, removed Ickes from office without pay for the duration, effective immediately, and taxed him with the cost of the proceedings.

How It Works in Texas

Texas draws the recusal line in the same place. Under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 18b and the parallel criminal framework, a judge related within the third degree to a party or a material witness must recuse, and a judge whose impartiality could reasonably be questioned on any other ground must either disclose it or step aside. Rule 18a sets the mechanics: the motion goes to the judge, who either recuses or refers it to the regional presiding judge for another judge to decide. Adverse rulings alone are not evidence of bias, which is why an undisclosed relationship, rather than a string of unfavorable decisions, is what moves an appellate court.

What Texas does not have is Ohio’s structure for punishing it. Ohio disciplines judges through the Board of Professional Conduct with the Supreme Court imposing the sanction, so one body can suspend a law license and vacate a seat in the same order. In Texas, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct sanctions judges up to public censure but cannot remove one; removal runs through a separate Review Tribunal of appellate justices, and a judge’s law license is a separate matter for the State Bar entirely. For the full walk-through, see our explainer, Who Polices Texas Judges? The SCJC Explained.

If Your Case Was Before a Judge with an Undisclosed Conflict

It usually surfaces sideways. A courthouse rumor, a docket sheet with a familiar last name, or a co-defendant’s motion in an unrelated case that mentions the relationship.

Raise it the moment you learn of it. Elkins and Stratton both moved for recusal as soon as the relationship became known, and that timing is part of what let the appellate courts treat the issue as preserved rather than waived.

You do not have to prove the judge was actually biased. Ohio and Texas both disqualify on the appearance standard, so the fight is about disclosure and the reasonable-question test, not about reading the judge’s mind.

A conviction can be reversed well after sentencing. Both of these were undone on direct appeal, once the reviewing court had the full record of what had been withheld.

The Rules Ickes Broke

How It Played in the Press

WTOL’s 11 Investigates broke the story in July 2024, after obtaining records of harassment complaints filed by three courthouse employees and an outside human-resources investigation the judge himself had commissioned. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel’s formal 17-count complaint followed in January 2025. Local coverage also noted that Sandusky County Republican officials defended Ickes during the disciplinary hearing, even as the workplace investigation and the two reversed convictions became public.

Where Is He Now?

Ickes is off the bench and cannot practice law until August 2028. He is also still on the ballot. His name remained on the November 3, 2026, ballot for a full-term beginning January 1, 2027, running against independent challenger Kimberly Ontko, a magistrate in the same courthouse.

Ontko tried to get him removed from it and lost. She filed a protest with the county board of elections in August, after the removal order came down. The board rejected it, and on September 14, 2026, the Supreme Court of Ohio refused to order his removal in State ex rel. Ontko v. Sandusky County Board of Elections, No. 2026-1133. The reasoning was procedural rather than a judgment about his fitness: Ohio law allows candidacy protests only before the primary, and the May primary had long passed. A separate statute lets a board strike a candidate on its own initiative within 60 days of an election, but this board did not use it. The practical result is that Ohio law gave no one the power to keep an ineligible candidate off the ballot at that stage.

So, Sandusky County voters face a genuinely strange choice. Ickes’s suspension runs into 2028, which would cover roughly the first year and a half of any new term he won, and he could not occupy the seat during it. Whether voters return him anyway is an open question at publication, and the Gavel of Shame will follow up.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCE

• Supreme Court of Ohio, Disciplinary Counsel v. Ickes, Slip Opinion No. 2026-Ohio-3173 (Aug. 19, 2026). supremecourt.ohio.gov
• Court News Ohio: Sandusky County Judge Removed from Office for Multiple Judicial Conduct Violations (Aug. 19, 2026). courtnewsohio.gov
• Court News Ohio: Court Cannot Remove Suspended Judge From Ballot, State ex rel. Ontko v. Sandusky Cty. Bd. of Elections (Sept. 14, 2026). courtnewsohio.gov

NEWS COVERAGE

• WTOL 11 Investigates: Investigators recommend Sandusky County judge be suspended for sexual, judicial misconduct. wtol.com
• 13abc: Ohio Supreme Court removes local judge over conduct violations (Aug. 19, 2026). 13abc.com
• Signal Ohio: Sandusky County judge Jon Ickes suspended, still on ballot. signalohio.org

REFERENCE

• Deandra Grant Law: Who Polices Texas Judges? The SCJC Explained. texasdwisite.com
• Texas Rules of Civil Procedure 18a and 18b, recusal and disqualification of judges. txcourts.gov

This post summarizes public judicial-discipline records, a published court opinion, and news reporting for general informational purposes as of publication. It is not legal advice, and nothing here is a comment on the guilt or innocence of any criminal defendant whose conviction was reversed on procedural grounds.