DAYTON — The Ohio Supreme Court has suspended the law license of a former Montgomery County judge.
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Former Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Richard Skelton had his law license suspended for one year, though he will serve only six months of that sentence if he follows the rules, according to court records.
He resigned from the bench on Dec. 31, 2024.
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As previously reported, Skelton was the focus of an ethics complaint that accused him of improperly releasing a prison inmate after repeatedly talking about the case privately with the inmate’s mother for more than a year.
The complaint said the judge knew the inmate’s mother because she worked at his doctor’s office.
Aaron Cox pleaded guilty in 2020. He admitted to charges including aggravated robbery, felonious assault, and escape after he knocked a Montgomery County deputy to the ground, jumped in the driver’s seat of his cruiser, and ran over his arm while taking off from the scene.
The next month, a judge sent Cox to prison at his sentencing. What happened in the years that followed is the subject of the ethics complaint.
The document said that in December 2021, Cox’s mother spoke with Skelton about her son’s case while he was at a doctor’s appointment.
In April 2022, two months after the judge who originally sentenced Cox retired, the complaint says Skelton submitted an order to transfer Cox’s case to his courtroom without telling the presiding judge he had been talking to Cox’s mom about the case privately.
The next month, in May 2022, Cox’s lawyer filed court documents asking that Skelton let him out of prison.
Two days later, the complaint says Skelton texted Cox’s mom he had set a hearing for the matter and said, in part “... will call u later and let u know my plan. Remember, do not tell him he is getting released!”
In June 2022, in a hearing at the courthouse, Skelton granted the request from Cox’s lawyer to let him out of prison.
The next month, the complaint says Montgomery County Judges Timothy O’Connell and Mary Wiseman got wind of what Skelton had been doing and confronted him about it —encouraging him to self-report to the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct.
The document says Skelton refused, so O’Connell and Wiseman filed a grievance against him.
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