Criminal charges against a central Ohio lawyer were dismissed yesterday after
he agreed not to sue the Ohio Dental Board and the State Highway Patrol for
false arrest stemming from remarks he made at a public meeting in February.
The charges of disrupting a public meeting, a misdemeanor, were dismissed
against lawyer Douglas E. Graff in Franklin County Municipal Court. Graff, of
Pataskala in Licking County, said afterward his remarks to the dental board on
Feb. 16 were meant only as a way of objecting on the record for his client,
Cincinnati-based dentist Parneet S. Sohi.
Sohi was appearing before the board to appeal a six-month suspension of his
dental license, but board President Donald Demkee of Wooster, Ohio, would not
let Graff speak.
"The record in this matter is closed, and all avenues of appeal have
been exhausted,'' Demkee said that day.
"Requests to admit additional
evidence |
were denied by the courts; therefore, the board will not entertain any
such request.''
A court stenographer hired by Graff subsequently recorded a polite,
nonconfrontational discussion between Graff and Demkee. In the end, Demkee asked
a state trooper to remove Graff from the hearing room.
"I was handcuffed and taken to the highway patrol office at the
Statehouse,'' Graff said yesterday. "I was representing my client and I was
put in a position of not representing my client or being placed under arrest.''
Graff's attorney, Jon Browning, said Graff agreed not to sue the two state
agencies if the charges were dropped.
Sohi, who has an appeal pending in the Franklin County Court of Appeals,
blamed the dental board for "railroading'' his case. He has denied
allegations from former employees that he had mistreated at least one juvenile
patient in 1996. |
