The Toledo Blade editorial board delivered a brutal assessment of Sandusky County politics over the weekend.
After Republican Common Pleas Judge Jon Ickes was suspended from practicing law for two years and removed from the bench by the Ohio Supreme Court, the Blade declared the current state of the Sandusky County Republican Party an embarrassment to Fremont’s Republican history.
“Sandusky County is sliding into political cesspool status,” the editorial board wrote, pointing not only to Ickes but to a Republican sheriff who went to prison and a Republican prosecutor who left office after a criminal conviction.
But Sandusky County did not suddenly begin sliding with Jon Ickes.
The scandals stretch across nearly the entire chairmanship of Justin Smith, who has led the Sandusky County Republican Party since January 2008.
During Smith’s more than 18 years at the helm, a Republican sheriff went to prison for stealing drugs and abusing his office. A Republican prosecutor resigned after a criminal conviction and an effort by the Ohio attorney general to remove him. One Republican judge was hit with a $33,300 state finding over invoices the Ohio auditor called falsified. Another was removed from office by the Ohio Supreme Court after disciplinary authorities found 10 ethical violations.
Smith did not personally cause those acts, and there is no evidence he directed the underlying misconduct. But after nearly two decades running the political organization responsible for recruiting candidates, supporting campaigns and filling vacancies, the record of the party Smith leads is also his political record.
Overmyer: From Republican sheriff to prison
Smith became Republican chairman in January 2008. That September, Kyle Overmyer was sworn in as Sandusky County sheriff following the death of Sheriff David Gangwer.
Overmyer would eventually become one of the most spectacular public-corruption cases in the county’s modern history.
By 2015, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was examining his handling of prescription drugs collected through law-enforcement disposal boxes. Overmyer nevertheless won the March 2016 Republican primary with 61% of the vote.
Five months later, a grand jury indicted him on 43 counts, including 38 felonies involving theft in office, deception to obtain dangerous drugs, tampering with records and other theft offenses.
Smith did not call for his resignation.
“We are not going to make any judgment until we see what’s going on,” Smith said after the indictment. “I do believe that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
Overmyer was also an elected member of the Republican Central Committee. Even while suspended and under indictment, he participated in a Republican committee meeting to help select an interim replacement for his own office.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts, including theft of dangerous drugs and theft in office, and was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay $25,000 in restitution.
Then the prosecutor fell
Three years later, another major Republican officeholder collapsed.
County Prosecutor Tim Braun pleaded guilty in December 2019 to negligent assault stemming from improper physical contact with a female subordinate.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost then sought Braun’s removal, citing his criminal conviction and what the state described as a broader pattern of misconduct involving female employees.
Unlike some other cases, the county Republican Party did act against Braun. Republican leaders unanimously called for him to resign and leave the Central Committee, and Smith said the county needed to “get back on track.”
Braun resigned in January 2020.
The Republican Central Committee then appointed Beth Tischler to replace him — a decision that would become important as another courthouse controversy unfolded.
The $33,300 Brad Smith finding
Republican Juvenile and Probate Judge Brad Smith has held his Sandusky County judgeship since 2009.
Years later, the Ohio Auditor of State documented another extraordinary episode inside county government.
A state audit found that Brad Smith admitted manually creating seven invoices connected to two nonprofit organizations.
The auditor called them “falsified invoices” made to appear as though the organizations had billed for specific services that had not been provided as represented.
Six corresponding checks totaling $33,300 were cashed.
The auditor issued a $33,300 Finding for Recovery against Smith and his bonding company for public property the state said had been “converted or misappropriated.”
Brad Smith strongly disputed that characterization, arguing that the nonprofit organizations performed legitimate services and that the payments reflected longstanding arrangements. The auditor considered his objections and left the finding intact.
Then the finding disappeared.
In 2023, Tischler — the Republican prosecutor appointed after Braun’s resignation — sought to abate the entire $33,300 finding. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office approved the request, and Smith repaid nothing.
The abatement was backed by several county officeholders. Tischler later supported Brad Smith’s reelection, while Smith supported Tischler’s campaign for judge.
Earlier this year, Smith faced another campaign-finance controversy when TiffinOhio.net reported that his campaign directed contributors to a personal Venmo account.
The Ohio Office of Disciplinary Counsel later confirmed that four donors had sent a combined $650 through the account and that the money was returned after TiffinOhio.net reported the arrangement. The disciplinary office declined to impose discipline.
Despite those controversies, Brad Smith was again the only Republican candidate for his judgeship in the May 2026 primary.
Then came Ickes
If the Brad Smith case raised questions about financial accountability, the Jon Ickes case exposed a more basic failure of political vetting.
Gov. Mike DeWine appointed Ickes to the Sandusky County Common Pleas Court in 2020. He later won election as a Republican.
By October 2024, a disciplinary complaint against him was public. The case included allegations of an unprofessional courthouse environment and serious conflicts of interest arising from Ickes presiding over criminal cases in which his stepson participated as a law-enforcement witness.
A disciplinary hearing occurred in May 2025, and the Board of Professional Conduct issued its findings months before the 2026 Republican primary.
Yet when Republican voters received their May ballot, the party offered them one candidate for the Common Pleas Court seat:
Jon M. Ickes.
No Republican challenged him.
During the disciplinary case, Brad Smith testified favorably about Ickes, calling him “a solid human being and a good judge.” Tischler also defended his performance, rating him nine out of 10 as a trial judge.
The Ohio Supreme Court reached a much harsher judgment.
On Aug. 19, it suspended Ickes for two years and immediately removed him from office without pay. The court pointed to what it called a “glaring conflict of interest” and said the damage to confidence in the judiciary was “incalculable.”
Ickes’ uncontested Republican nomination has now created another problem: whether a suspended judge who cannot serve may remain on the November ballot.
Independent candidate Kimberly Ontko has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to remove Ickes from the ballot or prevent votes for him from counting. As of Aug. 31, the case remained pending, with the court ordering another filing due Sept. 1.
The Blade put the responsibility plainly.
In a functioning political party, its editorial board wrote, Ickes would have been pressured to resign or would have faced a serious Republican primary challenger.
Instead, the party handed him its nomination without opposition.
Gary Click and Smith’s political pipeline
State Rep. Gary Click belongs in this history for a different reason.
Click has not been convicted of a crime like Overmyer or Braun, subjected to a state Finding for Recovery like Brad Smith or removed from office like Ickes.
His connection is political.
In 2017, before Click became a state representative, the Sandusky County Republican Party recommended him for the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee.
“The committee was impressed with Gary Click’s reputation and to his commitment to the Republican Party,” Smith said at the time, explaining that Click had been selected from several candidates.
Click eventually moved from the local Republican apparatus into the Ohio House.
Since then, TiffinOhio.net has repeatedly reported on Click’s political judgment, including his campaign’s paid defense of House Bill 6 before the nuclear bailout became synonymous with Ohio’s $60 million bribery scandal, donor-funded travel and his continued legislative relationship with Republican Rep. Rodney Creech after allegations that Creech sexually abused his minor daughter. Creech denies the allegations and has never been criminally charged.
The Smith-Click relationship remains current.
When Smith became county commissioner this spring, Click praised him through his official legislative newsletter, describing Smith as bringing “strong leadership” and “a clear commitment to public service” and predicting he would serve with “integrity and dedication.”
Then the chairman got a county office of his own
For most of his 18 years as chairman, Justin Smith operated largely behind the political machinery.
That changed this year.
Smith himself has a history in county government. Personnel records previously obtained by TiffinOhio.net showed he was reprimanded while working as a deputy clerk of courts in 2019 over concerns that included political activity during county work time and inaccurate work. Smith denied wrongdoing and said he had been forced to resign.
In April 2026, after Commissioner Charlie Schwochow left office, the Republican Central Committee Smith chairs selected Smith to fill the vacancy.
Because Smith was a candidate, Vice Chairman Ben Decker presided over the meeting. Nine Republicans sought the appointment. After three ballots, Smith won.
The committee simultaneously made its longtime chairman a county commissioner and the Republican candidate for the remaining two years of the term.
Brad Smith swore him into office two days later.
Justin Smith remains chairman of the Sandusky County Republican Central Committee.
Eighteen years is long enough to own the record
Political leaders cannot control every act committed by every candidate their party elects.
But leadership cannot mean claiming credit for victories while treating scandal after scandal as somebody else’s responsibility.
For more than 18 years, Justin Smith has led the Republican organization that dominates Sandusky County politics. During that period, Republican officeholders have gone to prison, pleaded guilty to criminal misconduct, faced major state audit findings and been thrown off the bench by Ohio’s highest court.
Some were condemned by the party. Others survived without primary opposition. Some were defended or rehabilitated by other Republican courthouse officials. And through all of it, the organization responsible for filling vacancies and supplying Republican candidates remained under the same chairman.
The Blade concluded that Sandusky County will remain vulnerable to “political hacks” until voters put public integrity ahead of party loyalty.
That warning followed the collapse of Jon Ickes.
But the fuller record runs from Overmyer to Braun, from Brad Smith to Ickes, through the rise of Gary Click and finally back to Justin Smith himself.
Different offices. Different scandals. Different levels of wrongdoing.
One chairman.
