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As complaints pile up, former Girard prosecutor hopes to avoid permanent disbarment
By Ed Runyan
COLUMBUS
While complaints against former Girard Municipal Court Prosecutor Robert L. Johnson relating to his work as a private-practice attorney continue to pile up, Johnson’s attorney says Johnson’s mental-health issues explain what happened.
Johnson served as prosecutor for the Girard Court for 18 years until Feb. 1, 2014, six weeks before the Ohio Supreme Court suspended his law license over complaints filed by clients in Trumbull and Lorain counties.
Atty. Terry A. Swauger, who is prosecutor in Niles Municipal Court, is representing the Trumbull County Bar Association, which is investigating four additional complaints filed by former clients of Johnson’s.
Swauger told the Ohio Supreme Court in an Oct. 27 filing that the Lorain County Bar Association also is investigating three additional complaints and is seeking Johnson’s permanent disbarment.
Atty. John B. Juhasz of Youngstown, who is representing Johnson, filed documents with the Supreme Court on Sept. 17 saying his client is guilty of failing to respond to complaints from customers and the Trumbull and Lorain county bar associations.
But Juhasz says Johnson’s “mental depression explains, though it does not justify” his failure to respond to complaints about his work.
Juhasz asks the Supreme Court to view Johnson’s depression as an illness, for which Juhasz said Johnson is being treated, and to be mindful of the 20 years he practiced law competently and “discipline-free.”
Juhasz said depression “changed [Johnson] from an ethical, well-respected lawyer and loving husband and father into someone his friends, family and clients did not know. It caused him to freeze at the stick while at the same time appearing not to do so.”
Juhasz said Johnson’s mental illness caused him to “freeze” instead of acting on client cases but that this behavior is consistent with his mental illness.
Johnson, formerly of McDonald, says he is receiving treatment in the Youngstown-Warren area and hopes to return to his legal practice when he has recovered.
A complaint from Trumbull County involved a couple who paid $1,240 to Johnson to file a civil suit against Trumbull Business College. Johnson filed the suit in March 2013, but his clients found errors in it.
In September 2013, Judge Peter Kontos of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court dismissed the lawsuit after Johnson failed to reply to a judgment pleading, according to the county bar association.