COLUMBUS, Ohio ― A federal judge will resign his seat as an Ohio State University trustee and teach two semesters of law school classes without pay to resolve an ethics investigation over his law school teaching job, under an agreement announced Thursday.
Judge Algenon Marbley acknowledged the pay he received for teaching from 2007 through February ran counter to state Ethics Commission advisory rulings and violated state law, according to the agreement.
Although Marbley could have been charged with a crime, the commission said there was no evidence he misused his position as trustee to receive more pay than what the university already provides federal judges, the agreement said. Marbley performed his duties as a professor and was highly regarded, it said.
“This was not hidden,” the Ethics Commission’s executive director, Paul Nick, said in an interview. “This was not a situation where he was concealing the actions that he took.”
Franklin County prosecutor Ron O’Brien and state auditor Dave Yost signed off on the agreement.
Marbley called the events “an unfortunate set of circumstances” beyond his control.
“I have been transparent and forthcoming about my 14 years of teaching and, at all times, I fulfilled and took seriously my ethical obligations as a trustee and as a federal judge,” Marbley said in a resignation letter Thursday to trustee chairman Jeffrey Wadsworth.
