Gene Donofrio, the incumbent Democrat seeking re-election to the 7th District Court of Appeals, is defending his political commercial, which his opponent, Mark Hanni, claims is untruthful.

Hanni, through his attorney, David Engler, has filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission charging his Democratic oppponent with providing false information in his television and radio commercials. Engler has asked the elections panel to bar Donofrio from running commercials stating that Hanni ran unsuccessfully for judge five times.

“Without identifying his source, Judge Donofrio has made totally false statements about Mr. Hanni,” Engler wrote to the elections commission, asking for the panel to impose sanctions against Donofrio, including ordering him to immediately cease and desist from running the ads in question.

“The truth is that Mr. Hanni has run for judge three times, not five times,” Engler wrote.

Hanni has said he ran three times unsuccessfully, once as a Democrat for a 7th District Court of Appeals seat against Mary DeGenaro in 2013 and twice as an independent candidate for Youngstown Municipal Court.

However, Donofrio said Saturday that Hanni received a benefit in that ad because he did not include the time he filed to run as a Democrat write-in candidate against Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney.

“This current election marks his 7th time running for a judicial position, which he has unsuccessfully done under multiple political designations (4 x Democrat / 2 x Independent / 1 x Republican),” Donofrio wrote in a news release.

Donofrio provided records from the Mahoning County Board of Elections showing Hanni ran for judge the following six times:

• 2012 as a Democrat in the general election against incumbent Judge Mary DeGenaro for the 7th District Court of Appeals;

• 2014 as a Democrat in the primary against incumbent Judge Cheryl Waite for the 7th District Court of appeals (withdrew);

• 2014 as a Democrat write-in in the primary against Mahoning County Common Pleas Court incumbent Judge Maureen Sweeney (withdrew);

• 2017 as an independent in the general election against Carla Baldwin for Youngstown Municipal Court;

• 2018 as a Democrat in the primary against David D’Apolito and Hanni’s sister Holly Hanni for the 7th District Court of Appeals (withdrew)

• 2019 as an independent in the general election against incumbent Judge Renee DiSalvo and Martin Hume.

“When an official candidate fails to win a race, whether by withdrawing or failing to receive enough votes, this is by definition an unsuccessful race,” Donofrio wrote in his release.