Written by A local legal battle has pulled back the curtain on serious financial and procedural concerns within Marion County government. Case 2025-CV-0441, Telly Haynes v. Ray Grogan, involves allegations of “willful neglect” linked to a multimillion-dollar financial crisis and a potential cover-up of missing legal bonds.
On January 9, 2026, Judge Matthew P. Frericks ruled that the lawsuit will move forward, allowing the court to formally review evidence of what the Complainant calls “procedural sloppiness”.
The $4.5 Million Financial Gap
The core of the complaint centers on a 2019 State Auditor’s Management Letter which identified a massive $4,540,762 overstatement in county funds. Audit records reveal several critical failures:
- Missing Bonds: The surety bond for a Probate Judge expired in February 2019 and was not replaced for nearly a year.
- Accounting Errors: Auditors found that over $103,000 in outstanding checks were not correctly tracked, and reconciliation errors dated back as far as 2010.
- Exposed Liability: State Auditor Keith Faber warned that these failures created “exposed liabilities” if theft were to occur within the office.
”Proof of Concealment”: The Email Trail
Newly released emails from March 2022 suggest that officials were aware of these bonding failures but chose to provide misleading information to the public. The documents detail a specific “plan” involving several key figures:
- The Warning: Insurance agent Janet Lackey alerted Judge Robert Fragale and Assistant Prosecutor William Owen that the State Auditor required the judges to have specific “Public Official Bonds”.
- The Instruction: Instead of obtaining the correct bonds, William Owen recommended providing “Corsa paperwork” (general liability insurance) to satisfy public records requests.
- The Execution: Teri Slaughterbeck and Judge Fragale coordinated to gather this paperwork, despite being told it did not replace the required statutory bonds.
Legal Jeopardy: Potential Removal from Office
The Complainant argues that these actions violate specific mandates under the Ohio Revised Code (R.C.), placing the Respondent in significant legal jeopardy:
- Mandatory Oversight (R.C. 309.11): The Prosecuting Attorney is legally required to prepare all official bonds for county officers and ensure they strictly follow the law before they can be approved.
- Willful Neglect: By allowing officials to serve during nearly a year of bonding lapses, the Complainant argues the Respondent abandoned this mandatory role, constituting a distinct charge of neglect.
- The Removal Process (R.C. 309.05): Because the complaint identifies a specific breach of duty linked to a $4.5 million crisis, the Complainant is requesting a hearing under this statute, which governs the removal of a prosecuting attorney for misconduct.
Why This Matters
This case is no longer just a procedural dispute. With Judge Frericks’ order to correct criminal records that erroneously labeled Haynes a felon, and the acceptance of evidence regarding a $4.5 million financial overstatement, the court is now looking directly at how Marion County handles its most sensitive data and taxpayer dollars.
If the Complainant’s evidence holds, it suggests that when the county was faced with a financial crisis and missing legal protections, officials chose to “conceal statutory vacancies” rather than fix them.