WARREN — The Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office confirmed this week it received a “shotgunned” request “that went to a lot of different agencies” to investigate allegations against Trumbull County Clerk of Courts Randy Law.

But the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office is not investigating the matter, said Chief Deputy Dale McDorman. It was referred to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, McDorman said. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office later refused to comment on whether it is investigating the allegations. McDorman said that one thing that “came up” was “the video” from the front counter area of the clerk of courts office.

“It was alleged that we had video of an alleged violation. We do not possess that video,” he said.

McDorman said at the time an allegation was brought to the sheriff’s office, it appeared that news media received the allegations first. The newspaper received the allegations in late July. The allegation suggested that Law had made a mistake in one instance and mishandled a search warrant in another instance.

The search warrant allegation involved Law being in the front counter area of the Clerk of Courts Office at the Trumbull County Courthouse.

McDorman said that although the sheriff’s office initially “had” the case, it was referred to either the Ohio Attorney General’s Office or the Attorney General’s Office’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. He said either the sheriff’s office or the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office referred it to the Attorney General’s Office.

When the newspaper asked the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office in August for documents related to the allegations against Law, the sheriff’s office denied the request Aug. 19, stating that the records related to an “ongoing investigation.”

This week, McDorman clarified that the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office is not investigating the matter because “It’s not something we would have investigated.”

He added, “Whether (the Ohio Attorney General’s Office or BCI) are doing anything, I honestly can’t answer the question because I don’t know. They don’t tell us.”

McDorman added that the cameras in the clerk of courts office are not under the control of the sheriff’s office, despite the sheriff’s office serving as the security force for the courthouse.

“Those are not sheriff’s department” cameras, McDorman said.

When Steve Irwin, press secretary for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office was asked if it was conducting an investigation into the allegations against Law, Irwin stated: “I cannot confirm the existence of, or potential for, investigation.”

JUDGMENT ENTRY

Meanwhile, Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald Rice filed a judgment entry Aug. 7 as administrative judge authorizing the four common pleas court general division judges to retain possession of sealed documents for cases pending before each judge.

The entry “authorizes each of the four judges … at their discretion, to retain possession of sealed documents,” the entry states. Normally, documents, such as search warrants related to criminal investigations, are kept in a locked area at the Trumbull County Clerk of Courts office, Rice said in a recent interview.

Rice filed the entry for two reasons, he said. One is that there were “issues in the past” in which information in sealed warrants was “leaked.”

Another reason is that Law, who became clerk of courts in January after winning the November election, has had a “learning curve” as clerk of courts, he said. Rice declined to be more specific as to what he meant by Law’s “learning curve.”

Law, a Republican, replaced Karen Infante Allen, a Democrat, who was clerk of courts for more than two decades. Law defeated Democrat Jennefer Holland in the November general election.

Sealed documents, such as search warrants, go to the clerk of courts to be time stamped, Rice said. But under his Aug. 7 judgment entry, each of the four judges can take such documents “back” after being time stamped to retain them for safekeeping, Rice said.

Rice said requests to a judge to give permission for law enforcement to conduct a search as part of an investigation — frequently called an affidavit — and the judge’s decisions are kept secret and are placed in a sealed envelope “not to be opened or looked at” by anyone other than by the judge who issued it.

He said there are important reasons why such information is kept private. Such documents contain allegations about a person. If such allegations become public, “reputations can be ruined,” he said. He gave the example of someone being accused of committing a sex crime. He said if such information got out, “You’re ruined. You can’t take that back.”

Rice explained that if any of the judges chose to retain their sealed documents instead of leaving them with the clerk of courts office, they must “be maintained by the judge’s official court reporter in a designated secure location.” Rice said he has retained some such documents.

RANDY LAW

During an interview at his law office on Wednesday, Law said his handling of documents such as search warrants and the “return” of a warrant that contains the results of the search is not only proper but it’s his job as clerk of courts to handle them.

First, when a law enforcement officer brings a request for a search warrant to the clerk of the court’s office, they are sometimes not in an envelope. When they come in, they get time stamped with a clerk of courts stamp, he said.

Then, they are placed in a clerk of courts envelope that has spaces on the outside to record certain information, such as the time it came in, Law said. His office employees typically do the time stamping.

If the document that comes in is the “return” of a search warrant, then it is Law’s job to “match them up,” meaning match up the return of a search warrant with the search warrant approved by a judge and store them together. In order to do that, he has to look at the document, he said.

Only Law and his chief deputy clerk, Devon Stanley, have the keys to put search warrants and their “returns” into the secure area where search warrants are kept, he said.

Law works in his office in the clerk of courts office in the county courthouse or at one of the three other clerk of courts offices near the courthouse most of the time during regular business hours. That allows him to take care of search warrants and returns, he said. If he is at one of the other offices, people call him, and he returns to the courthouse, he said.

“They come in all the time. They need to be time stamped,” Law said.

As for the allegation that he mishandled sealed documents, Law said has never been questioned by law enforcement about it, and has only heard about it by “haters” on the internet.

“We don’t address them,” he said of the internet allegations.

He said the suggestion that he used his cellphone to take a picture of a search warrant in the front office area where the public enters is “just absurd,” saying “We don’t share information outside the office.”

He said if someone thinks they saw him photographing a search warrant, “that is incorrect.”

He added, “Why would I do something so nefarious in the front office? I have my own office. There is nothing that happened improperly or nefariously in this office. Security is important to us.”

Staff writer Brandon Cantwell contributed to this report.