By Robert Ruth THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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After having two other John Kerry signs stolen from her yard - the first thanks to lawyer Mitchell H. Banchefsky - Ann Boucher of Columbus made her own.

Mitchell H. Banchefsky doesn't seem like someone who would lead a young person astray.

Besides being a partner in the Downtown law firm of Schottenstein Zox & Dunn, Banchefsky, 51, is a part-time law director for New Albany and Marble Cliff, and a member of the Ohio Crime Victims Compensation Fund board.

But then, it is an election year.

Yesterday, Banchefsky acknowledged to The Dispatch that he told his 13-year-old daughter last month to filch a John Kerry campaign sign from the yard of Ann Boucher, of Clearview Avenue, on the Northwest Side.

Two people witnessed the theft and gave Boucher the license plate number of the suspect's vehicle, which Columbus police traced to Banchefsky.

He said he was driving with his daughter when he spotted the Kerry sign at the corner of Clearview and W North Broadway. He stopped and asked her to grab it, which she did, Banchefsky said.

He was more irritated that the sign was too close to W North Broadway - in the public right of way - Banchefsky said, than he was that it supported the Democratic presidential candidate. A registered. Republican, he is an avid supporter of President Bush.

"Most people don't realize you can't put signs in the right of way," Banchefsky said.

"I'm not using that as an excuse. It was an exercise in bad judgment on my part. I should have called the Columbus code-enforcement people and had them remove it."

Boucher, who spoke twice with Banchefsky after the incident, was skeptical of his right-of-way argument. The sign was at least 12-feet from North Broadway, she said, and well within her property.

"And even if it was in the right of way, what right does he have to take it down?" she said. "It sounds like vigilantism. This is about my First Amendment right of freedom of speech.

"This was a Bush-Kerry thing, not a right-of-way thing."

Banchefsky said he is sensitive to the right-of-way issue because a Bush sign had been removed from his yard, possibly because of right-of-way concerns.

Banchefsky, who sent Boucher a $10 check for the sign, said, "This is being blown out of proportion. I did it on impulse."
Columbus City Prosecutor Steve McIntosh said he would not pursue the case unless Boucher files a complaint.

Boucher said she will not do that because she also would have to file a complaint against Banchefsky's daughter.

Instead, she plans to file an administrative complaint against Banchefsky with the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary councel, which investigates allegations against lawyers.

Since the July 17 incident, a second Kerry sign has been stolen from Boucher's yard.

The determined Kerry supporter has installed a third sign that she made herself. "I'll keep replacing them," she said.

The whole situation is unfortunate, said the mayor of Dublin, where Banchefsky handled zoning and development issues until about a year ago.

"The political process is to allow everyone to run for office and to allow them to tell people about that," Mayor Marilee Chinnici-Zuercher said.

Banchefsky showed bad judgement, but his part-time job is secure in New Albany, Mayor Nancy Ferguson said last night.

Ferguson, an attorney, couldn't say if Banchefsky had taken the law into his own hands by having his daughter remove the sign. "I would have to think about that," she said.

There are better way to get young people involved in politics, New Albany Council Member Colleen Briscoe said.

"I would not pull out yard signs, and I wouldn't be having my daughter do it," Briscoe said. "What was he thinking?"

Upper Arlington News

August 8, 2004

By Aaron Marshall

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"It was a lapse in judgment": This makeshift sign replaces one Mitch Banchefsky drove off with last month.

A tip for the politically active: If you plan to yank someone else's election signs out of the ground, don't use a "sea foam" green SUV with a vanity plate as your getaway car.

A prominent Republican attorney, who works as the law director for both New Albany and Marble Cliff and also is a Dublin prosecutor, learned that lesson the hard way last month.

Mitch Banchefsky, a partner in the Columbus firm of Schottenstein, Zox & Dunn, has admitted to directing his daughter to take a "UA for John Kerry" sign from the side yard of Clearview Avenue resident Ann Boucher, according to a police report filed on the incident.

Driving his distinctive "sea foam" SUV with the license plate OLDTOYS, Banchefsky stopped in eastbound traffic on West North Broadway around noon on July 17, according to the report. A passenger then jumped out and took the sign, which sat between the road and a fence in Boucher's yard, the report said.

Banchefsky told the reporting officer, "Yes, I did tell my daughter to remove the sign," adding, "That was the only sign we stole," the report said.

During a brief interview Tuesday, Banchefsky called his role in the sign swiping "a lapse in judgment." He added that he believed the Kerry sign "was clearly in the public right-of-way" but acknowledged, "that is not the point."

"I should have called Columbus code enforcement and had them do it," he said. Banchefsky said he paid Boucher $10 to compensate her for the sign.

The Schottenstein, Zox & Dunn website said Banchefsky's practice focuses on municipal and governmental law, including "police issues" and "right-of-way ordinances."

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, said citizens shouldn't remove political signseven if they appear to be illegally placed in the public right-of-way.

"Signs are considered property of the campaign, and anyone not working on behalf of the correct municipality or Ohio Department of Transportation taking one down can be charged by the campaign for destruction of property," LoParo said.

Boucher, a Democratic central committee member, said the removal of her sign at the direction of a suburban official is troubling.

"Yeah, it's just a sign, but to me it's representing the foundation of this country," she said. "When you start denying people their right to speak up, where are we headed?"

Boucher said the yard sign, while outside of her fence line, is still on her property thanks to a quirk in her property deed.
Said Banchefsky: "I doubt that very much."

Boucher said she won't pursue criminal charges because she would have to press them against the younger Banchefsky and then charge her father as an accomplice.

Boucher said Banchefsky told her that his daughter is 13 years old. Banchefsky declined to discuss his daughter during his interview.

However, Boucher is planning to file an ethics complaint with the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary counsel against the elder Banchefsky.

"The fact that he is a city attorney makes this a little bit different," she said. "He's sworn to uphold the law, so I thought disciplinary action would be more prudent."

Boucher said the sign she lost July 17 is just one of three that have come up missing in recent weeks. Early this week, she was displaying a homemade Kerry sign, made with a black trash bag as she waited for her fourth "UA for John Kerry" sign to arrive.

"If I don't have a sign of some kind up, I feel like they have won," she said.