Mahoning County Clerk of Courts: the passport mailing

The issue

In October 2026 local TV reported that the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts' passport office mailed people's passport applications to the wrong person. The Clerk put out a statement saying "I identified the union employee responsible" and that it was "an isolated incident caused by human error."

Cool. Show us.

What we asked for

• Sent: October 19, 2026, 6:10 PM, one email from TheMLOBROS@gmail.com to the Clerk of Courts (Brent Hanni, Ryan Kadel), the Prosecutor's Office, the County Auditor/Data Processing (IT) and the Board of Commissioners. Ohio Public Records Act, R.C. 149.43.
• The 8 items:
• The Clerk's written policy on who reviews and mails passport applications.
• Any incident report, internal review, or discipline record about the misdirected mailing.
• Emails with the U.S. State Department about it (Apr 1, 2026 to date).
• Emails of Clerk Michael Ciccone, Brent Hanni and Ryan Kadel containing "passport" (Apr 1, 2026 to date).
• Prosecutor's Office / Clerk communications about the mailing.
• Clerk-to-Commissioners emails about the passport office, budget/funding, or staffing and pay (Jan 1, 2026 to date).
• Names, titles, start dates and salaries of supervisors and assistants hired or promoted since Jan 1, 2025.
• The Clerk's recent request to the Commissioners for about $100,000.
• The Prosecutor's Office denied the request as to itself on October 22, 2026, then acted as the Clerk's lawyer for the rest of this.

What we got

What's missing or denied, and the stated reason: - Item 1, written mailing policy: none exists, per the Clerk's Oct 29 letter. - Item 2, incident report / internal review: none produced. Only the two Oct 14 discipline notes and training certificates (below). No "probation" record. - Item 5, Prosecutor-Clerk communications: "no responsive records," and the office also claimed attorney-client privilege (R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(v)). Ohio law doesn't require a privilege log, so we dropped that ask. - Item 6, Clerk-to-Commissioners emails: the Clerk's lawyer said these were posted to the shared Drive. We went through both batches and don't see any. Still open. The Commissioners' own search was "being worked on" as of Oct 26. - Redactions: The printed mailbox-owner name at the top of each email page is blacked out. The Clerk's lawyer cited State ex rel. Taxpayers Coalition v. Lakewood, 86 Ohio St.3d 385 (1999) (the print header wasn't part of the original record). We agreed to redaction of employees' private personal info. Packing/shipping labels were left out by agreement on a phone call.

What we found

1. The feds knew in July. On July 13, 2026 at 9:15 AM, the State Department's Office of Acceptance Facility Oversight emailed the Clerk's office. Quote: six passport applications were "mailed to an incorrect address from your facility in June." And: "This incident exposed the personally identifiable information (PII) of the affected applicants." (Clerk production 10/30, PDF pp. 138, 140-141)

2. The office's answer to the feds: "probation." At 9:50 AM, Meghan Hanni (Director of HR and Chief Deputy of the Title Department, per the office's letterhead) wrote back. She said the applications went out "in the wrong package to a customer who had requested certified naturalization records," and that "the employee involved... has been placed on probation as a result of the incident, and will no longer be responsible for mailing passport applications." She also listed fixes: separate labeled bins, a staff review, and checking each package before it leaves. (pp. 137-138, 140) The State Department closed it at 2:24 PM the same day: "we consider this matter resolved." (p. 137)

3. The discipline they actually gave us is dated October 14. We asked for the discipline record. We got: - A "Verbal Counseling" to a deputy clerk, counseling date October 14, 2026. It lists incident dates of April 8 and April 9, 2026, and says the package was mailed April 9. It calls itself "instruction and cautioning" under the union contract and says it "is not a written warning." It expires after nine months. (Discipline file, Nov 2 production, p. 5) - That same record says: "On October 14, 2026, WKBN reported to the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts that the passport agency received naturalization documents instead of passport documents." (p. 5) - A second "Documentation of Verbal Warning" to another deputy clerk, also dated October 14, 2026, about naturalization paperwork. (p. 3) - A passport transmittal form with a handwritten date of 4-10-2026 and a count of 6. (p. 2)

No probation record. No incident report. No internal review.

4. The Clerk's "I identified... my review" statement was written by someone else. On October 14, 2026 at 1:40 PM, Meghan Hanni emailed Clerk Ciccone a draft: "I identified the union employee responsible. My review determined this was an isolated incident caused by human error." (p. 9) At 2:04 PM, Ciccone sent nearly the same words to a TV reporter, signed by him. (p. 8) Staff writing statements for an elected official is normal. We're pointing it out because the statement talks about a "review," and no review record was produced.

5. The State Department rejected their annual paperwork in August. On August 25, 2026, the State Department wrote: "The annual certification for Mahoning County is incomplete and will not be accepted." Reasons listed: missing Facility Manager training, missing facility website, and an incorrect phone number "(wrong number of digits)." It also told them not to include email printouts and not to hand-write forms. (p. 93) It was approved September 20, 2026. (p. 82)

6. Timeline, side by side | Date (2026) | What the records say | Source | |---|---|---| | Apr 8-9 | Incident dates on the discipline record; package mailed Apr 9 | Discipline file p. 5 | | "June" | When the State Dept said the applications were mailed | Clerk prod. p. 138 | | Jul 13 | State Dept asks; office says employee "placed on probation"; State Dept closes it | pp. 137-141 | | Aug 25 | State Dept rejects the annual certification as incomplete | p. 93 | | Sep 20 | Certification approved | p. 82 | | Oct 14 | TV station calls; verbal counseling and verbal warning signed; statement drafted and sent | Discipline file pp. 3, 5; Clerk prod. pp. 8-9 |

What's next

• Why does the only discipline record we got say October 14 when the office told the State Department in July the employee was already on probation? We asked for every discipline record. If a July probation record exists, we haven't seen it.
• Why does the discipline record say the office learned about it from a TV station on October 14, when the State Department emailed the office about it on July 13?
• April or June? The discipline record says April 8-9. The State Department said June. Which is right?
• Were the six applicants ever told their personal info went to a stranger? We have not seen any record that they were notified. That doesn't prove they weren't. It means nothing in what we got shows it.
• Where's the "review"? The statement says "my review determined." No review was produced.
• No written mailing policy at all? Per the Clerk's own letter, none exists.

Our opinion: If your passport application, with your Social Security number and birth certificate info, got mailed to a stranger, you'd want a phone call. Not a TV report six months later. We think the public deserves to know whether those six people were ever told.

Follow-ups

• Open: Clerk-to-Commissioners emails (item 6). The Clerk's lawyer says they're on the Drive; we can't find them.
• Open: the Commissioners' side of the same emails.
• Pending: U.S. State Department FOIA F-2027-02675 (filed Oct 30, 2026). State's own portal estimates delivery November 26, 2027. Yes, 2027.
• Possible next ask: Any notice letters sent to the six affected applicants. Any probation record from July 2026.

Documents

These are the records as the agencies released them. We blacked out only information that could identify a minor, our own personal contact details, and adult Social Security numbers. Any other black boxes were put there by the agency.

• Clerk of Courts' Oct 29, 2026 interim reply letter (no written mailing policy exists)View PDF
• Discipline records produced for item 2 (verbal counseling and verbal warning, Oct 14, 2026) and the passport transmittalView PDF
• Clerk production, Nov 2 batch (scan 20261030161812551)View PDF
• Clerk production, Nov 2 batch (scan 20261030163054083)View PDF
• Clerk's 151-page email production (Oct 30, 2026)View PDF
• 2025 Clerk budget workbook (174 pages, attached to an Oct 7, 2026 email)View PDF
• Oct 2, 2026 letter asking the Commissioners for $100,000View PDF