Ohio Supreme Court permanently disbars teacher-turned-attorney who admitted to sexual

The Ohio State Supreme Court has permanently disbarred an attorney currently serving a nearly 30 years prison sentence for inappropriate sexual relationships he had with two students during his time as a as a Willoughby Hills private school teacher.

Anthony Polizzi, 44, is currently serving 29 years and 10 months in prison after pleading to six counts of sexual battery and two counts of gross sexual imposition in Lake County Common Pleas Court.

The charges stem from his time as a history teacher at Cornerstone Christian Academy. He also served as a mock trial adviser, class adviser and cross country coach.

The criminal offenses occurred during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years when the victims were 17 and 18, according to court records.

Polizzi did not face criminal charges until years after the incidents. He told the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct that someone reported him to the school’s superintendent after being caught off of school property with the second victim.

Polizzi told the board that in his conversation with the superintendent, he admitted that he had met the victim. The superintendent told him his contract would not be renewed. Polizzi admitted to the board that he was not honest with the superintendent about having sexual contact with the victims.

The board last year recommended his permanent disbarment.

After leaving Cornerstone Christian Academy, Polizzi finished his law degree and took the bar exam. According to documents from the Ohio Supreme Court, although Polizzi disclosed his termination from the school, he did not disclose he had engaged in sexual conduct with his students.

“Had Polizzi disclosed that conduct or been convicted before he sought admission to the bar, his application most certainly would have been disapproved,” a slip opinion from the Ohio Supreme Court stated.

Willoughby Hills police began an investigation into Polizzi after one of his victims came forward. During the course of the investigation, a second was identified.

One of the victims said in court she never planned on turning him in until he sent her a “filthy” email out of the blue two years after they broke things off. That email triggered something in her that made her determined to get justice.

Polizzi was originally sentenced in May 2018 to 33 years in prison by Lake County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. O’Donnell. The 33 years was the maximum sentence Polizzi faced. He successfully appealed his sentence to the 11th District Court of Appeals and was sentenced by O’Donnell in January to the 29-year-10-month sentence.

At his original sentencing, Polizzi admitted that he told a court psychologist he wanted “those girls to experience misery for what they’ve done to me.”

“What nerve! To say what they did to you,” O’Donnell said. “It’s been 10 years for (the first victim) and eight years for (the other) and that fear will never go away.”

The Ohio Board of Professional Conduct found that during their hearing with Polizzi, he was “slow to take complete responsibility for his actions.”

The board called the victim-shaming “the most disturbing evidence that supports” Polizzi’s disbarment. The board wrote in the report that the fact that Polizzi said the victims’ statements were exaggerations “does not demonstrate a person who has accepted full responsibility of his actions.”

Polizzi objected to the board’s recommendation. He argued the board improperly found that he failed to accept responsibility for his criminal conduct and then used that incorrect finding as an aggravating factor.

He also argued the board unfairly held him to the ethical standards of an attorney when it considered his repeated attempts to communicate with the victims after his sexual conduct ceased but before he was admitted to the bar.

“By the board recommending a sanction of disbarment, it is holding Mr. Polizzi to the standards of conduct applicable to attorneys for behavior that occurred starting 10 years prior to his 2017 indictment and several years before he became an attorney,” Polizzi’s attorneys argued.

In the slip opinion from the Ohio Supreme Court, the majority of judges agreed to adopt the Ohio Board of Professional Conduct recommendation to permanently disbar Polizzi.

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, along with justices Sharon L. Kennedy, Patrick F. Fischer and Jennifer Brunner concurred.

Justice Michael P. Donnelly, joined by justices R. Patrick DeWine and Melody J. Stewart dissented.

In his dissenting opinion, Donnelly wrote, “the court imposes this ultimate form of discipline for criminal offenses that were committed three to five years before Polizzi became an attorney but were not prosecuted until four years after he became an attorney.”