Clermont County, Ohio — August 24, 2026. An officer-worn camera captured the moment 75-year-old James Patrick Kenney, a former judge and former assistant Hamilton County prosecutor, was taken into custody. He faces charges of engaging in prostitution, obstructing official business, and solicitation. Bond: $150,000.
Investigators say that on August 4, Kenney signed in as an attorney for his fourth visit to an inmate he didn’t represent. The contact room: windows, but no deputies watching — attorney visits aren’t monitored by policy. The trade: three vape pens and two tins of tobacco for sexual contact. Drug dogs can’t smell tobacco. The contraband spread through the cell block, deputies started asking questions, and the case unraveled.
And it’s not his first time. In 2004 — while an assistant prosecutor — he pled guilty to sexual imposition after touching a 21-year-old male guest who had fallen asleep on his couch. When police first questioned him, he denied everything; he confessed only after the sheriff’s office opened its own case, admitting he hoped to “avoid all responsibility for his crime.” He was sentenced to 60 days, 50 suspended — ten days served. The disciplinary board counted his initial lie to police as a separate ethics violation and found he had harmed a vulnerable victim. The Ohio Supreme Court suspended his license for two years, stayed 18 months — then reinstated it with conditions: treatment, total abstinence, random testing, twice-weekly AA meetings.
Twenty-two years later, that same credential walked him into a jail with privileges almost nobody else has. The badge at the door never asked why.
Next hearing: September 10. The sheriff says additional subjects are expected to be charged.
What’s your take — should an attorney keep jail access after a prior conviction like this? Sound off in the comments.
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