Michael Brandt Retired

Michael T. Brandt, a former Franklin County, Ohio Municipal Court judge, resigned his law license amid a disciplinary complaint alleging he misappropriated more than $65,000 from the Association of Municipal/County Judges of Ohio, whose roughly 250 member judges each paid $150 in annual dues. Brandt served as the association's treasurer from 2006 to 2022, and an audit found that between 2014 and 2022 he withdrew over $35,000 in cash through ATM withdrawals, online transfers, and checks made out to himself, with no formal bookkeeping or money-tracking software behind any of it. More than $16,800 of the misappropriated funds went toward home repairs — including work at a house he owned in West Virginia and his home in Grove City, Ohio.

When confronted about an undocumented $2,000 check he had written to himself, Brandt resigned as treasurer and reimbursed the association $17,000, later paying an additional $25,000 in October 2023 as part of settling the matter. Ohio's Office of Disciplinary Counsel filed a formal complaint against him in August 2024, and Brandt applied to voluntarily give up his law license rather than let the disciplinary process run its course.