Secty of State: Brunner (D) Challenges Hartmann (R) on Criminal Record

Secretary of State candidate Jennifer Brunner (D-Columbus) is calling on opponent County Clerk Greg Hartmann (R-Cincinnati) to come clean about his criminal record.

Hartmann denied that he had ever been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor (other than a minor traffic violation) on his written application to be Hamilton County prosecutor in 1999. In that application he attested that "the answers I have made on this form are true and complete."

Earlier this week the news broke that in Lexington, Virginia in 1987 (twelve years before the job application), Hartman was tried and found guilty of violating a municipal noise ordinance while a student at Washington and Lee University. Hartmann has quibbled about whether the offense is properly characterized as a "misdemeanor," although the definition in Black's Law Dictionary ("offense lower than a felony and generally one punishable by fine or imprisonment other than in penitentiary") leaves little room for doubt.

Brunner said in a press release today that Hartmann "could be considered a fugitive" in Iredell County, North Carolina, because he didn't appear in court and never paid or challenged a second offense in 1988 for possessing a malt beverage and speeding. Court records show that Hartmann was arrested, but through a spokesperson Hartmann asserted he wasn’t actually convicted because he didn’t appear in court.

“Greg Hartmann owes another clerk of courts and the people of North Carolina $135 in unpaid fines. To this day, 18 years later at age 39, Hartmann still has not paid for breaking the law,” Brunner said. “If an individual who is applying to prosecute crimes against other citizens has not been truthful in a law enforcement application, then how can voters be confident that he will be honest with them?”

“The Ohio Republican party is promoting Hartmann as their 'next generation of leadership' and we can see why,” Brunner added. “Perhaps their leaders like Bob Taft and Ken Blackwell are hoping to continue the lineage of omission, evasion, and corruption.”