The Ohio Supreme Court suspended Sandusky County Common Pleas Judge Jon Ickes from practicing law for two years and ordered him off the bench immediately without pay, ending a case built on group texts sent during a live felony trial, a firearm kept steps from a Nerf gun in his chambers drawer, and an undisclosed family tie to a police detective that unraveled a felony conviction. The court's 5-2 decision, issued Wednesday, went further than the punishment recommended just months earlier, stripping Ickes of his seat effective August 19, 2026.
Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Patrick F. Fischer, Daniel R. Hawkins, and Megan E. Shanahan, along with appellate Judge Michael D. Hess, who sat in place of Justice Jennifer Brunner, according to Court News Ohio. Kennedy determined that an actual suspension was necessary given the scope of Ickes's misconduct, rejecting calls for a stayed penalty that would have let him keep working. The high court adopted 10 findings of misconduct spanning five counts, according to the same filing, as reported by TiffinOhio.net, whose reporter Jen Ziegler detailed the case.
A Trial Interrupted by Group Texts and Banana Videos
During the 2023 child-rape trial of Leroy A. Stratton, Ickes exchanged group text messages with court staff about potential jurors and sent sexually suggestive banana videos from the bench while live testimony was underway, according to WTOL 11. Ickes had refused to recuse himself from Stratton's case even after presiding over cases investigated by his stepson, Fremont police officer and detective Christian Ortolani, per TiffinOhio.net's reporting. Ickes reportedly referred to the Stratton matter internally using a vulgar and demeaning term for the victim, the outlet reported, and ultimately sentenced Stratton to life without parole.
That sentence did not stand as originally issued. The Sixth District Court of Appeals reversed the Stratton conviction, along with the felonious assault conviction of Curtis L. Elkins, finding that Ickes's failure to disclose his relationship with Ortolani created an unconstitutional potential for bias that violated due-process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment, the appellate court found, per the same account. Ortolani had investigated three criminal cases that landed on Ickes's docket, including the Elkins matter, without any conflict waiver ever being obtained. Stratton was retried before a visiting judge in January 2026 and was again sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on February 4, 2026, per TiffinOhio.net. Ickes had also sentenced Elkins to six to nine years before that conviction was thrown out.
Nerf Guns, a Hidden Firearm, and Slurs in Chambers
The misconduct findings extended well beyond the courtroom bench. Ickes fired a Nerf gun at staff both in chambers and in open court, and he also kept an actual firearm in a chambers drawer, once mistakenly reaching for it instead of the toy gun and later telling staff the mix-up would not have been good, the station reported. When formally instructing jurors not to discuss cases on social media, Ickes repeatedly substituted a vulgar term for Snapchat, according to WTOL 11's reporting.
TiffinOhio.net's reporting, drawing on the disciplinary record, describes a pattern of racially charged and demeaning remarks: Ickes allegedly called a probation secretary a slur because she was Black, quoted a line from Blazing Saddles containing a racial slur, and called his assignment commissioner a derogatory political term. He is also reported to have harassed his pregnant assignment commissioner, identified in filings as J.D., at one point telling her to wait until “the titty fairy comes,” a remark dated to April 2024; J.D. later left the assignment commissioner's office for another judge's chambers. Nathaniel Simmons heard one of the slurs and Ickes subsequently recused himself from that case. Ickes also reportedly called probation officer Logan Risch a “dumbass” after she suffered a neck injury requiring physical therapy from airborne fentanyl exposure on the job.
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
The disciplinary complaint against Ickes became public in October 2024, months after employee harassment complaints first surfaced in July 2024. Sandusky County paid an independent consultant $5,760 to investigate the courthouse's workplace culture, according to WTOL 11's earlier reporting, though TiffinOhio.net's account states it was Ickes himself who hired an outside firm to investigate the harassment complaint and, separately, that he instructed county administrators to halt their own investigation. The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct held a four-day disciplinary hearing in May 2025 with testimony from 19 witnesses, and the board filed its findings with the Ohio Supreme Court in October 2025, recommending a one-year suspension that would have been entirely stayed. The case was submitted to the justices on December 10, 2025.
Attorney Jeremiah S. Ray was the one who reported Ickes, according to TiffinOhio.net. Not everyone who testified painted an unfavorable picture: former colleague Beth Tischler reportedly rated Ickes a nine out of 10 as a trial judge, and attorney Brad Smith called him a solid human being and a good judge. Tischler had also lost a primary to Jeremiah Ray by roughly 18 points, per the same reporting. The costs of the disciplinary proceeding have been taxed to Ickes.
Justices Split on How Harsh to Go
The Supreme Court's majority rejected both a stayed sentence and the two dissenting justices' preferred middle grounds. Justice R. Patrick DeWine dissented in favor of a one-year suspension with six months stayed, while Justice Joseph T. Deters would have imposed a fully stayed two-year suspension paired with mandatory anti-harassment training, according to Court News Ohio. The majority's choice of an immediate, active suspension rather than either of those lighter alternatives underscores how far the high court's view diverged from the board's original recommendation.
Election Uncertainty Looms Over November
Ickes was first appointed to the Sandusky County Common Pleas bench by Governor Mike DeWine in June 2020 to fill a vacancy, and he won his first full six-year term outright in November 2020, beginning that term on January 1, 2021. He is a Republican. Now his two-year suspension covers roughly the first 19 months of the new term he is seeking, which would begin January 1, 2027, creating a direct collision with this fall's election.
Ickes remains on the November 2026 ballot after Sandusky County Republicans put him forward, and Ohio holds nonpartisan general elections for common pleas judgeships, meaning the race will appear as a two-name contest without party labels. Neither the Democratic Party nor the Sandusky County Republican Party filed an alternative candidate for the seat. In the May 5 primary, 7,737 Sandusky County Republican ballots were cast, with 5,092 marked for Ickes and 2,645 left blank in the judge's race, according to TiffinOhio.net's review of election records.
His opponent is Kimberly J. Ontko, an independent Fremont attorney who serves as a magistrate in the same courthouse and who announced her candidacy in January 2026, as reported by the Fremont News-Messenger. Following the suspension order, the Sandusky County Board of Elections requested a legal opinion from the county prosecutor's office regarding candidate eligibility and ballot procedures, since Ickes's suspension extends well past the December 31, 2026 expiration of his current term, per WTOL 11's reporting. Under the Ohio Constitution, Governor DeWine has the authority to appoint a temporary replacement judge or assign visiting judges through the Ohio Supreme Court to keep Sandusky County's docket moving during the suspension, a mechanism outlined by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio. For now, Ickes is off the bench and off the payroll, with the county's court operations and the November election both left to navigate the fallout.
