Yesterday, this Beacon contributor spoke in front of the Hamilton County Commissioners at their meeting and stated that Sheriff Simon Leis, by his use of county money to campaign for the jail tax, was engaged in unethical behavior and requested that the commissioners do something about it.  I also mentioned his threat to sue another critic, as reported in The Cincinnati Enquirer. Mr. Portune said Sheriff Leis believes he has behaved legally and that by turning over documents to the prosecutor the sheriff demonstrated that he is a man of integrity. When I started to ask if that meant that the sheriff would continue to campaign in the manner he has been, Mr. Portune sharply cut me off and said that my two minutes were up.

Since the letters were electronic, “turning over” means just giving the prosecutor a copy.  Indeed, a check of the official sheriff’s website just a few minutes ago (time now is 1:40 p.m. on Sept. 12) shows that that letter is still posted.

Mr. Portune’s standard for integrity—that one provide copies of campaign materials that were intended for wide distribution anyways—is extraordinarily low for the chief law enforcement official of the county.  It appears that we can expect more of Sheriff Leis’s style of campaigning, at least for a while.

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