Ex-Mingo fire chief pleads no contest; prosecutors, judge say Ohio criminal statutes don’t cover sexual coercion

STEUBENVILLE--Former Mingo Junction fire chief Brandon Montgomery never looked up as Jefferson County Prosecutor Jane Hanlin read into the record exactly how his accusers said he used his position as their boss to pressure them into having sex with him.

It was a long, detailed and, at times, graphic list.

Montgomery, 38, pleaded no contest Friday to a misdemeanor charge of telecommunications harassment.

After listening to every one of the excerpts she read aloud during the 21-minute hearing, Judge Joseph Bruzzese found Montgomery guilty and sentenced him to six months probation and fined him $1,000 -- the harshest sentence currently available under the Ohio Revised Code.

While ORC prevents certain groups of people --teachers and students, coaches and athletes and even priests and parishioners, for instance --from engaging in sex, nothing in it currently prevents a boss from using his power over a subordinate's work schedule, training or continued employment to "make them feel they have no other choice but to submit."

Montgomery told the judge only that, "I do apologize for all this coming to the court." His attorney, Charles Amato, pointed out, "There’s pending civil litigation, so we’re not going to obviously comment on anything the prosecutor said. He’s willing to plead no contest to one count — that was a stipulated plea we came up with. We’re not here to address any of the sexual harassment charges because he was never charged with that or in that."

Bruzzese wasn't swayed.

"I have to say that it’s a shame that the most egregious of your conduct is not covered by the Ohio Criminal Code," Bruzzese said. "Maybe on account of this case (one day) it will be, because I think the things that you did that were not covered by the code, that nothing can be done about, are actually worse than the ones that are being covered by the code."

One after another, Hanlin related to the court how victims described for investigators how Montgomery wielded his workplace power to pressure them to submit to his sexual cravings.

"He says things (like), 'You need to remember I am the one who controls your schedule'..." one woman said. Another told them, "If I did not have sex with him, (he) said he would find a way to fire me..."

An accuser said he "wanted sexual favors before he would grant promotions or better hours" and that the illicit assignations would typically take place in his office, where he had set up a bed, or in a restroom in the basement of their building where there were no cameras.

"...He began inviting me to his office...while he was working the midnight shift so that we could have sex in his office," one of his accusers said.

"...If I didn't go to the women's bathroom in the basement with him, 'All of these things that I had now would go away--my job, the possibility to further my career'," another told investigators. "I knew that I would lose the ability to receive funding for my continuing education and I was trying to support a child on my own. I felt like I had no choice and...I couldn't tell anybody. I didn't really know anybody all that well and everybody seemed to be friends with him."

One woman said he told her to go to the downstairs bathroom and, "once inside, (she) observed a chair and a stack of towels. After engaging in sex with (her) the defendant wiped himself off with a towel and handed it to her and told her to 'get rid of it'."

One of them said when she tried to evade his advances at one point he asked her, "Don't you like your job?" and that after she performed oral sex at his request, he "gave (her) a water bottle and sent her to the training she was seeking."

When she tried to end the relationship, one of the women said he told her, "You're gonna regret this..."

The victims said he pressured them to send him nude photos "in case he needed them for control or retaliation."

"He referred to his iPad as a 'little secret compartment' and a 'vault' and the 'holy grail'--meaning that is where he kept the naked pictures that he convinced (them) to send to him," they said.

One witness told authorities Montgomery would send pictures of male genitalia to his subordinates' wives.

"After sending inappropriate messages or photographs to subordinates, he would send a message that said, 'Make sure you delete that ... too'," another said.

During their 24-hour shifts they said he would use cameras he'd installed in the day room where they slept to photograph them, "then sent them texts that (said) sick things such as ... 'You would look good naked'..."

One woman said he told her outright if she did not have sex with him..."he would find a way to fire me..."

During the course of the investigation Hanlin said investigators discovered Montgomery had placed audio and video recording cameras throughout the fire department so he could monitor any or all conversations taking place there.

Hanlin said while ORC "does not contain a criminal section that prohibits a fire chief from coercing subordinates into sexual relationships, but it does prevent him from making audio/video recordings of him without their knowledge or consent."

"There is some debate over whether some or all of the affected individuals knew that Montgomery was recording both video and audio of their every movements," she said. "Some members of the Mingo council contend that the cameras were authorized; Others, including the mayor, insist that they were not."

Hanlin said when one of the victims told he "she did not want to do this anymore he replied, 'If I go down, you go down, and I’ll take all your cards. You won’t be able to work no more' and as a result, she kept the relationship a secret."

"These women did indicate that they were not physically forced to submit to the sexual demands of the defendant, but they felt as though they had no other choice," Hanlin said. "When a female subordinate began dating someone else, he began to retaliate against her. All of a sudden, the shifts that she typically worked were not available, the funds for uniforms that she had access to before and the training that she previously had access to were all denied.

"These women reported that if they ruined their reputation by running afoul of him, they couldn’t go (work as firefighters) anywhere else."

Once investigators were called in Hanlin said disparaging comments about the witnesses started appearing on a Facebook page titled "Mingo Junction Corruption" that, ultimately, was traced back to Montgomery's computer.

"Part of this plea agreement required that Facebook page to be taken down," she said. "It has been taken down. It will remain taken down. And Mr. Montgomery, as a term of his community control sanctions, is not permitted to restart that Facebook page or any other regarding the matters that have occurred in this case, nor is he permitted to have any other individual do so on his behalf. If he does, that would be a direct violation of his community control sanctions, and the court could then impose the six months jail sentence."

Bruzzese also weighed in, telling Montgomery that the Facebook page stays down, "and if you do anything that is viewed as retaliation or intimidation, we’re coming back and you’re doing the six months. Understand that?

After the hearing, Hanlin said she regrets that Montgomery couldn't be charged under the criminal statute.

"I think Judge Bruzzese is correct," she said. "It's a shame that his worst conduct isn't a crime under the current laws of the state of Ohio. Hopefully down the road that will change because it should be a crime to treat your subordinates and the people that work for you and with you every day in the manner in which Mr. Montgomery treated the women that worked for him. He was sentenced to the most serious crime that we are currently allowed to charge--I hope that someday the Legislature will decide to make this sort of workplace behavior criminal instead of just civil."

Mingo Junction Mayor Judy Ruckman said several council members believe Montgomery is innocent and should have his job back, with one of them--Councilman Adam Peeler--sitting in at the hearing in support of him.

"They have chosen one man over a department, an entire department, that he terrorized (over several years)," Ruckman said. "No one ever heard them, no one took their complaints seriously or had any compassion for them, which is a shame. They've made this personal, like it's me against them because they're saying I was after him, that I did this to him. They don't have him having any accountability.

"Shame on the people who are standing beside him and not directing him to get the help that he needs to put him on a better path and to do better," she said. "I only wish him that."