HAMILTON — The political heat turned up a couple more notches in the Butler County prosecutor and sheriff races Tuesday.

        The challenger for sheriff, Democrat Alan Laney, accused the incumbent Republican sheriff, Harold Don Gabbard, of failing to investigate the background of the Republican candidate for prosecutor, Robin Piper, before publicly endorsing him.

        Mr. Laney said Mr. Piper's minor misdemeanor conviction for marijuana possession in 1981 prevents him from legally owning a gun — a claim that Mr. Piper's supporters say is desperate, bogus and a misinterpretation of Ohio law.

        In a separate news conference, Mr. Piper attacked the record of his opponent, Democrat Dan Gattermeyer, saying Mr. Gattermeyer's staff has one of the state's worst records for losing misdemeanor cases for lack of speedy prosecution. He also cited figures showing that the county's assistant prosecutors got rid of more than half their misdemeanor cases by allowing defendants to plead guilty to lesser charges.

        Mr. Gattermeyer, who is making his first run to keep the seat to which he was appointed in August, called those assertions “lies,” and said the statistics Mr. Piper quoted from an Ohio Supreme Court report “were reported inaccurately” by at least one of the county's three area courts.

        Mr. Piper says it's Mr. Gattermeyer who's lying, and the statistics show the office's lack of accountability — which he would correct. “Mr. Gattermeyer's whole campaign is built on one distortion after another,” Mr. Piper said. “Last week, Mr. Gattermeyer told the public that losing cases for time was very, very rare. In 1998, 55 cases were lost on time. That's more than one a week.”

        Mr. Piper said that his campaign committee researched beyond the Supreme Court report because “we knew they would try to wiggle out of the truth.” He provided an example of a “supporting document” from the area courts to show that the reported data was accurate.

        In 1998, the earliest year for which data was available, Butler County's misdemeanor cases dismissed for time accounted for 32 percent of the state's total 172 cases, Mr. Piper asserted, citing the figures.

        Still, Mr. Gattermeyer, noting that he had only a few minutes to read Mr. Piper's news release and respond, says the figures sound too high. “There's just no way,” he said. “The judges wouldn't let that happen.” Mr. Gattermeyer said he consulted the assistant prosecutors who were assigned to the area courts and they said nowhere near that many cases were dismissed for time.

        Robert Hendrickson, the judge in the court with the highest number of reported speedy trial dismissals, did not return a telephone call seeking comment Tuesday.

        Meanwhile, Mr. Gattermeyer and Mr. Laney both denied Republicans' claims that Mr. Laney is merely acting as Mr. Gattermeyer's hatchet man by making allegations against Mr. Piper.

        However, Mr. Gattermeyer did say he concurred with Mr. Laney's interpretation of Ohio law regarding Mr. Piper's alleged ineligibility to legally own a gun.

        At his press conference, Mr. Laney produced court papers showing that a county judge in 1990 turned over a handgun “for law enforcement purposes and self-protection” to Mr. Piper, who was then an assistant prosecutor. Mr. Laney also cited Ohio law and court rulings barring gun ownership if someone has been convicted even of a minor misdemeanor drug charge, and said: “Court decisions are clear: Convicted pot smokers may not legally go armed with guns in our communities.”

        Mr. Laney called on Mr. Piper to withdraw from the race — and urged Sheriff Gabbard to investigate “evidence” against Mr. Pip er.

        Sheriff Gabbard and others dispute Mr. Laney's interpretation of state law.

        They cite a section of Ohio law that says minor misdemeanor citations do not constitute a criminal record and do not have to be reported by someone seeking employment, a license or another privilege.

        Still, Mr. Laney said, a careful reading of court rulings shows he's right.

        Mr. Piper wouldn't comment about Mr. Laney's allegations, and Joe Statzer, the Republican Party's political director, explained why:

        “What Robin Piper did was nothing worse than both of our candidates for president of this country have admitted to. Mr. Laney's falsehoods are an insult to the political process — and Mr. Piper's not even going to dignify that with a response.”

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