The leader of the Ohio House is calling on state Rep. Bob Young to resign amid multiple criminal charges, including domestic violence, after the Summit County Sheriff’s Office issued a mandate for his arrest on Friday.
Messages left Sunday with Young and his attorney, John Greven, were not returned.
he was young indicted in Barberton Municipal Court with two misdemeanor counts of first-degree domestic violence and one fourth-degree misdemeanor charge of crime of disrupting public service at his home in Green.
The 42-year-old lawmaker appeared with his lawyer in court on Saturday. Judge Todd McKenney set bail at $5,000. Young paid $520, or 10 percent plus fees, to secure his release.
A Summit County grand jury will determine whether to indict the two-term state representative on the felony charge of disruption of public service, which stems from an alleged domestic violence incident at his home.
And Young, along with the Ohio GOP, is currently facing a defamation lawsuit over 2020 campaign attack ads that claimed his Democratic opponent had committed domestic violence 20 years earlier when a police report at the time stated that there was no evidence to support this claim.
The Summit County Sheriff’s Office has not returned numerous calls from the Beacon Journal seeking additional information about the criminal complaint against Young.
But the charges and the incident have shaken some members of the local Republican Party who were with Young just hours earlier. Young was with Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens of Lawrence County Thursday evening at the Tudor House in New Franklin for a joint fundraiser attended by other Summit County Republicans.
“Disappointed and shocked to hear what allegedly happened”
After the event, according to a person familiar with the case and statements made in court Saturday, Young and his wife returned home, where they hosted the speaker and friends.
In a statement to the Beacon Journal, Stephens said he spent a couple of hours at Young’s home on Greensburg Road before spending the night at a local hotel.
“I was disappointed and shocked to hear what allegedly happened sometime after I left the youth home,” Stephens said of the domestic violence allegations. “While I believe people are innocent until proven guilty, I have asked Bob to resign as state representative so he can focus on his family at this time.”
Young allegedly yelled at someone at his home before slapping another person, the person familiar with the case said.
When someone tried to call police around 1 a.m. Friday, Young allegedly threw his phone into the pool, resulting in the felony charge of obstructing emergency services. a confrontation at 9 a.m. Friday at another relative’s home in Green that led to the police being called.
Young was not at the residence, which is also on Green, when deputies arrived. That’s when the warrant was issued on Friday.
The first domestic violence charge includes the same address the state lawmaker delivered last year to the Summit County Board of Elections when he was re-elected to the Ohio House of Representatives from District 32 in south Summit County. Young was previously on the Green City Council.
Seve official biography of the House says Young “he married his Green High School sweetheart, Tina, and they have four school-aged children. They have built their lives together with their family and reside in the town of Green.”
Young was one of 22 of 67 Ohio House Republicans to pick Stephens speaker in January. That vote upset the Ohio GOP, which had expressed its official support for Toledo-area Rep. Derek Merrin.
The state party later approved a resolution of censorship the 22 Republicans who joined the 32 Democrats in the House to elect Stephens, a move the state party said dishonored the conservatives who elected Ohio’s GOP supermajority.
Young man sued over ‘false’ domestic violence attack ads
While facing criminal domestic violence charges, Young is also being sued for running political attack ads in 2020 that accused his then-opponent, Matt Shaughnessy, of being “guilty” of domestic violence 20 years earlier.
But Shaughnessy was never tried or even charged with domestic violence. And the police never found any physical evidence that the lawyer had committed domestic violence against his ex-wife.
“She made some complaints, and they were unfounded,” Shaughnessy said Sunday of the allegations made against him in October 2000. “And there’s not much I can do about it. It happened 20 years ago. The police never saw any evidence. Nothing. They never made any arrests. In fact, funnily enough, I was able to continue trick-or-treating with my kids.
“A lot of it didn’t make sense,” said Shaughnessy, whose defamation suit against Young also goes after the Ohio Republican Party for running newspaper and Facebook ads. “But (Young) actually turned around and told people he was guilty.”
For the past two decades, Shaughnessy, who like Young is a former Greens councillor, has worked to help victims of domestic violence recover financial losses. His claim for defamation is let’s go. In February, Young and his campaign filed a motion denying the ads were false or defamatory.
Contact reporter Doug Livingston at dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com.
