Sunday, February 13, 2000
Prosecutor's son gets biggest raise
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — John F. Holcomb's son isn't the highest-paid lawyer in the Butler County Prosecutor's Office, but he did get the biggest raise last year.
In January 1999, assistant prosecutor John M. Holcomb — “Junior” — received a 20 percent raise. That took his salary to $49,000 a year, in the top third among assistant prosecutors in his father's office.
Most of the other 37 assistant prosecutors received 3 percent raises, although six got salary increases ranging from 10 percent to 17 percent.
“I started out at the very bottom of the pay scale here,” the younger Mr. Holcomb, 34, says. Last year's raise, he adds, brought his salary more in line with his peers'.
John F. Holcomb, who will earn $95,815 this year, says his son got the big raise “probably because he works the hardest.” He provided no specifics.
Meanwhile, Butler County court records from 1994 through last year show that John M. Holcomb was prosecutor on three of four felony cases that the county lost because they weren't brought to trial in time. The felonies involved a 1998 assault on a police officer and drug trafficking cases in 1994 and 1995.
Under Ohio law, a person arrested on a felony charge must be tried within 90 days if he's locked up, or within 270 days if he's free on bond. If he isn't tried by then, and hasn't waived his right to a speedy trial, the charges must be dropped and the prosecutor loses the case “for time.”
John F. Holcomb says losing cases for time is rare, but “everybody in this office has had that happen.”
Even when time runs out, Mr. Holcomb says: “That's no fault of ours. That's because the g------- assignment clerk doesn't assign 'em in time.”
John Moser, a retired Butler County judge, disagrees.
“Our assignment commissioners are extremely diligent in their work,” he says. In his 20 years on the bench, Mr. Moser couldn't recall dismissing any other cases for time except the three that involved Mr. Holcomb's son.
Don White, prosecutor in nearby Clermont County, would only speak in general about losing cases for time. It “just doesn't look good,” he says. “If it happens once to a prosecutor, it shouldn't happen again.”
John M. Holcomb defends his record and says he has successfully prosecuted murderers, child molesters and others.
“Ever since I got this job, I've been subjected to some pretty vicious political attacks,” he said.
His father had to do some political maneuvering to keep the younger Holcomb on.
In 1993, shortly after Mr. Holcomb hired his son, Ohio lawmakers were working on a law to restrict public officials from hiring family members and business associates.
The elder Holcomb — with the help of County Commissioner Michael Fox, then a state representative — persuaded legislators to exempt his son, who had scored highly on the state bar exam in 1991.
Mr. Holcomb has said he doesn't want his son to seek elected office.
“Before I hired him, I made him promise that he'd never run,” Mr. Holcomb told the Hamilton Journal-News in 1998. “The thing to be is an assistant prosecutor. Do your work. Be a trial man. You don't have to worry about the commissioners, the judges, the press or whether some fool out in West Chester is all over your back about this or that.”
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