Part 2: Under Oath Michelle Hung’s Deposition Details the Cover-Up No One Wanted to Talk About
May 01, 2025
By Aaron Knapp | Lorain Politics Unplugged
⚖️ Legal Disclaimer
This article is based entirely on sworn deposition testimony from former Lorain County Commissioner Michelle Hung, taken under oath and recorded by certified court reporter Mary C. Peck. All statements quoted herein are drawn directly from the transcript of Hung’s official examination conducted by attorney Jonathan E. Rosenbaum and defense counsel Kathleen Minahan.
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A $100,000 Settlement Appeared—But Nobody Told the Board Why
On January 4, 2021, Michelle Hung began her term as a Lorain County Commissioner. Four years later, in a sworn deposition, she revealed how a six-figure public settlement to a former county employee—Jennifer Battistelli—was approved without any discussion, briefing, or executive session. The total payment was $100,000 in taxpayer funds. Hung testified that the first time she learned about the payment was when it appeared on her desk as a late requisition item—just one hour before a public meeting.
“I had my assistant go down and ask K.C. [Saunders] what the settlement was for,” Hung testified. She said she was told by Assistant Prosecutor Dan Petticord that the payment was a “legal bill” and that the “appointing authority said it had to be paid.” That’s all. There was no background given. No lawsuit disclosed. And, crucially, no copy of the EEOC complaint that led to the settlement was ever provided to her before she was asked to approve it.
In fact, Hung said she didn’t even know the EEOC complaint existed until after she was sued by a citizen trying to obtain it as a public record. Only then did her attorney send her a copy—months after the vote had taken place. “Had I seen this before the vote,” Hung said, “I would have had so many questions. And they know it.” She later clarified that in prior cases involving settlements, the board had always reviewed the facts in executive session. That didn’t happen here. “There was no executive session,” she testified. “This was not discussed. I was never told anything about it.”
The EEOC complaint was filed by former county employee Jennifer Battistelli. The allegations were serious. According to Hung’s description and later letters, the complaint accused Lorain County Prosecutor JD Tomlinson of exchanging public employment for sex, and further alleged assault. Yet the complaint was hidden from the Board of Commissioners when the payment was processed. “This information was withheld from me,” Hung said.
When asked by attorney Rosenbaum whether she would have voted to approve the $100,000 payment if she had seen the EEOC complaint beforehand, Hung didn’t hesitate: “Absolutely not.” She added that, in keeping with prior practice, she would have insisted on referring the matter to the Sheriff’s Office or holding an executive session before any vote. “We did that many times before,” she said. “That was the norm. This was not.”
Dan Petticord Orchestrated the Requisition—Then Lied About It
One of the central players in Hung’s testimony is Assistant Prosecutor Dan Petticord. According to Hung, Petticord was the one who directed the Battistelli settlement to be placed on the Board of Commissioners’ agenda—but not as a resolution, which would have required public discussion. Instead, it was quietly added as a requisition, a budgetary maneuver normally used for routine items. “It came to me as just another legal expense,” Hung said. “But something about it didn’t feel right.”
Hung later asked Budget Director K.C. Saunders how the settlement got on the agenda. According to her testimony, Saunders initially hedged, then admitted that Petticord had told him to add it—and possibly Commissioner Moore as well. But when Hung confronted Petticord directly during a public meeting on March 26, 2024, he denied it. He claimed he had “nothing to do with it” and that fiscal staff added it on their own. That lie was directly contradicted by an email in evidence, in which Petticord wrote: “Just found out I can do this as a requisition.”
Hung was stunned. “He told me he wasn’t involved. But the email is right there,” she testified. “He said he could do it this way, and then denied it in front of the board.” When asked whether Petticord was acting as her legal counsel during any of these interactions, Hung answered no. She said she later discovered—via Petticord’s own Facebook posts—that he was actually representing JD Tomlinson, not the Board of Commissioners.
In other words, the man who presented the settlement to the board, labeled it as a “legal bill,” and claimed it was required—was not acting as neutral counsel. He was representing the accused. Hung testified that after learning this, she repeatedly asked whether the board should have separate legal counsel. She said Petticord deflected and told her to “call Kathleen”—referring to defense counsel Kathleen Minahan, not an independent attorney for the board.
To make matters worse, the settlement itself was disguised in budget documents. The requisition described the $100,000 payment as being for “supplies and services” across various departments. When asked about this, Hung was clear: “That’s not true. Battistelli didn’t supply anything. This was a payout.” Yet the language allowed the expense to be processed with minimal oversight.
“Dan came into my office that day and told me it was a legal bill and the appointing authority has to pay it,” Hung said. “Then later he claimed he didn’t say that.”
A Pattern of Concealment, and the People Who Enabled It
Throughout her deposition, Hung made it clear that the Battistelli settlement wasn’t just a bureaucratic error—it was a calculated effort to prevent public scrutiny of a sexual misconduct complaint against the county’s top prosecutor. She stated that Prosecutor JD Tomlinson had denied the complaint even existed, and that his office told the public in writing that no such record could be found. But the complaint did exist—and Hung confirmed under oath that it was never given to the board prior to the vote.
Hung described the larger context: a culture of retaliation, secrecy, and backdoor maneuvering among Lorain County officials. She testified that when she asked questions, she was either misled or shut out. “They loved having executive sessions without me,” she said. “They’d just do it whenever they felt like it. I’d be sick one day, and they’d have a phone call and make a decision without me.” She specifically said she had no recollection of any executive session concerning Battistelli.
When asked whether the failure to release the EEOC complaint benefited Tomlinson politically, Hung replied, “Yes.” She went further, stating that the withholding of the complaint “shielded Tomlinson and his staff from public scrutiny and accountability.” She also testified that, in her view, the allegations in the complaint—including the assault claims—constituted criminal acts. Yet no law enforcement referral was ever made. No investigation followed. The entire incident was buried with a requisition form.
Hung connected the concealment to a broader pattern. She referenced past settlements involving employees like J.R. White and Nicole Janik, noting that most were handled with more transparency—and often with CORSA insurance involvement. The Battistelli payout, however, was done outside CORSA. It was rushed through without legal review. And it was paid directly with county funds, labeled as a generic “legal expense.”
“This wasn’t just about money,” Hung said. “This was about protecting someone in power. And they all knew it.”
Author’s Opinion: This Was a Coordinated Cover-Up—And They All Played a Role
By Aaron Knapp
Michelle Hung was the only commissioner to say under oath what everyone else tried to bury: this settlement wasn’t just shady—it was structured to avoid scrutiny, and everyone in power played along. Dan Petticord lied. JD Tomlinson denied the record existed. Moore stayed silent. Riddell never objected. Every mechanism that should have kicked in—ethics, executive session, legal counsel, public disclosure—was bypassed.
Let me be direct. They paid $100,000 in taxpayer money to settle a sexual misconduct complaint that they didn’t want you to know about. They mislabeled it. They denied the record existed. They passed it in one hour. And when Hung asked questions, they fed her lies. That’s not incompetence. That’s conspiracy.
If you’re wondering why nothing has happened to Moore or Tomlinson, don’t ask what laws were broken. Ask who’s too afraid to enforce them.
In Part 3, we’ll follow the money even closer: who signed the checks, what CORSA refused to cover, and how Moore and Tomlinson got the county to pay for their private attorneys without court authorization. If you thought the requisition was a trick, wait until you see what they called “legal defense.”
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