TOLEDO, Ohio — A former Sandusky County Common Pleas Court employee has been indicted by a grand jury for allegedly misusing investigative technology to gather personal information on people in his private life.
Barth Downie, 58, of Tiffin, was indicted by a Sandusky County grand jury on July 26 on three fifth-degree felony counts of Unauthorized use of Property.
According to the indictment, Downie accessed the Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway "without the consent of, or beyond the scope of the express or implied consent of, the superintendent of the bureau of criminal identification and investigation" in September 2020, March 2021 and September 2022 while he was a probation supervisor.
According to the Ohio Attorney General's office website, OHLEG is a "secure web-based platform helping criminal justice agencies to connect, solve and prevent crimes" that works to "protect the citizens of Ohio, while also respecting the privacy rights of those same citizens."
But Downie is accused of violating those rights, according to a letter in his common pleas court personnel file dated June 2, 2023, by running OHLEG reports on his daughter's boyfriend, a high school classmate and the boyfriend of the chief probation officer's daughter.
According to the letter, law enforcement who access OHLEG must "acknowledge and agree" to utilize the information exclusively "for administration of criminal justice for the official purpose of my agency."
Based on an audit, Downie was said to have logged in to OHLEG and agreed to the acknowledgment 139 times. But despite that, he is accused of using the platform for purposes unrelated to his role as a probation officer, which Downie admitted to doing during a pre-disciplinary hearing.
During a meeting on May 3, 2023, Downie admitted that he ran an OHLEG report on "******'* girlfriend" and "explained that he did this because he wanted to make sure she was a good person for ***** to be around because ***** relapsed after moving in with her."
Downie's personnel file also contains several written reprimands and final warnings related to "dishonesty, insubordination, inefficiency, and neglect of duty."
One of those instances is outlined on Feb. 8, 2023, in which Downie is accused of submitting a discharge summary with false information on a woman who was transferred to "standard probation."
The document alleges that Downie noted that the woman completed her community service hours, when in fact she had only completed 85 of the 100 hours. Downie also noted that she paid off her court costs when she still owed $1,100. He was ordered to correct the errors but did not and asked twice to keep the woman on his caseload, when it was recommended she be transferred to another officer due to concerns of Downie falsifying the information.
On May 2, 2023, the court documented an instance in which Downie allegedly changed a reservation for a hotel stay at a conference from his name with "the county address to his wife's name and their home address," in an apparent attempt to gain Hilton Honors points. He was advised that this was not allowed.
Despite all of the allegations and his eventual firing on June 5, 2023, Downie was hired by Sandusky County Court District 1, according to Sandusky County Human Resources Specialist Ian Cantu, though it's not known if the court was aware of the investigation into Downie when he was hired.
11 Investigates has requested Downie's personnel file from District 1 Court to find out the date he was hired. Cantu confirmed that Downie is, "an active full-time employee of the County Court."
Downie must appear in common pleas court on the three felony charges on Aug. 12 at 1 p.m.