A Hamilton County judge gave a tongue-lashing Thursday to five Cincinnati City Council members who broke the law by secretly conducting public business via text messages.

Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman told the five they violated the trust of voters and should immediately resign from office.

"You essentially lied to the people of this city," Ruehlman said. "The trust is gone. It's going to take a long time to get that trust back."

The five council members – Wendell Young, P.G. Sittenfeld, Chris Seelbach, Tamaya Dennard and Greg Landsman – all admitted as part of a settlement agreement that they broke Ohio open meetings law by secretly discussing public business in a string of group text messages.

The spectacle of five council members appearing before a judge to acknowledge wrongdoing is unprecedented in modern Cincinnati politics and threatens to unleash more chaos at City Hall, where personal and professional rivalries have interfered with council’s work for more than a year.

None of the five council members spoke in court Thursday, but the judge did plenty of talking. He said their actions betrayed the ideals of those who created a city government that's supposed to serve the public, not elected officials.

"I really believe the five City Council members should resign," Ruehlman said. "No city voter should ever vote for them again."

'This has been a political witch hunt'

Outside the courtroom after the hearing, Landsman said he has no plans to step down. "You have to take responsibility for your actions," he said, referring to the texts. "I've said they were a mistake from the beginning."

Sittenfeld said in a statement the group text messages were "an honest mistake" that won't be repeated. But he complained the error has been blown out of proportion by political opponents, including the law firm and the conservative, anti-tax group that have led the charge against the five Democratic council members.

"The important business of the city has been hijacked by politically motivated actions of a local right-wing group and their affiliated law firm, whose goals, put simply, are to cause chaos and enrich themselves," Sittenfeld said.

Seelbach attacked Ruehlman, a Republican, on Twitter, referring to appeals court decisions that went against the judge and describing him as the "most overturned judge in southwest Ohio."

Seelbach later issued a statement saying he took responsibility for his actions. But he said political opponents have used the uproar over the secret texts to attack him because he is gay, sometimes with threats and slurs.

"They've fueled the hatred of their supporters in our community," Seelbach said.

Councilwoman Tamaya Dennard blamed politics, too, as well as the media. "This has been a political witch hunt the entire time," she wrote on Twitter.

The Hamilton County Democratic Party weighed in with some strong criticism of Republicans and Ruehlman, in particular. "Judge Ruehlman is nothing more than a rubber stamp for Republican extremists," said Chairwoman Gwen McFarlin. "He has made a mockery of the court."

Possible contempt of court charge

Mark Miller, who filed the lawsuit that brought the text messages to light, said Ruehlman was right to criticize the five council members. "This is very real," Miller said. "How are we going to trust these guys after they purposely did business out of public view?"

One of the five, Young, will be back in court in a few weeks to face a possible contempt of court charge for deleting some of the texts at issue in the case.

The texting case revolves around group messages the five council members shared about the fate of former City Manager Harry Black.

But those text messages – as well as others pulled into the case during court proceedings – also reveal discussions about city contracts, board appointments and a litany of gripes and personal attacks on fellow city officials.

Thousands of additional texts between individual council members were released Thursday after the court hearing. Those texts became part of the case because Common Pleas Judge Robert Ruehlman wanted to get more information about the secret group conversations.

Ruehlman’s decision to release all the texts publicly stunned the council members because the texts they sent to one another outside the group did not violate Ohio open meetings law.

The group texts did break the law, however. And the settlement that was finalized Thursday will cost city taxpayers more than $100,000 in fees and fines.

How we got to court

The case began almost a year ago when Miller and his lawyer, Brian Shrive, sued the five council members after they issued a press release related to the power struggle between Black and Mayor John Cranley.

The press release from the five council members declared “it is now on us” to bring “order and a fair process to this situation.” Their statement laid out plans for a “cease fire” between Black and Cranley and called for the appointment of an independent counsel.

Shrive and others questioned how the five Democrats, a majority of the nine-member City Council, could craft such a statement without first discussing it in private. Turns out, they couldn’t.

Their group text messages during March of 2018 showed they did talk about it in private, along with a host of other council-related topics, in violation of Ohio open meetings law.

They discussed how they would vote on matters before council and acknowledged in their texts that their private conversations may not be proper. At one point, they attempted to skirt the law by arranging a conference call with just four members, one less than a majority.

More:Timeline: How the City Hall text case evolved

More:Cincinnati City Council texting case: Who's who

“The entire point of this is about how we govern,” Sittenfeld said in a March 24 text. “Can’t emphasize enough the degree to which we need to stay coordinated.”

Young described the group as the “the Invincible Five” and the “new gang of five,” a reference to a 1980s-era coalition that dominated council for years.

“I pray we stay strong and continue to trust each other,” Young said in a March 16 text. “We have the power to move this forward.”

Others called the group a “team” and a “coalition,” and several discussed via text how they would vote on upcoming council measures. They also shared a rough draft of a statement they planned to release, discussed how to promote it on social media and voted on a final version.

“Just respond ‘agreed’ if you’re good with it,” Seelbach said in a March 18 text to the group.

The exchanges also included unflattering comments about Cranley, who at the time was attempting to force out Black.

“Cranley could be lying to me,” Seelbach said in a March 12 text. “Would never trust him for a second.”

“We know Cranley doesn’t mind lying about anything,” responded Young, who later referred to the mayor as “a little sucker” in the same group text string.

Fights over Cranley and cops

The secret conversations were part of a larger effort by the five council members to create a City Council coalition that could stand up to Cranley, a fellow Democrat who the council members believed was abusing his power as mayor.

They accused him of meddling in the city manager’s business, possibly in violation of the city charter, and they bristled at a tough-guy management style they saw as self-serving and too aggressive.

“Cranley is trying to destroy our city manager form of government,” Young said in a March 20 text. “We can’t allow that to happen.”

Most of the text messages centered on Cranley’s effort to oust Black, who had asserted his authority as city manager in early 2018 by firing police Capt. Dave Bailey. Black said Bailey was part of a “rogue element” undermining the police chief, but Cranley opposed the firing.

That dispute divided City Council and set the two most powerful figures at City Hall against one another.

The five council members wanted to keep Black on the job and make him an ally in their efforts to contain Cranley. The effort ultimately failed and Black took a buyout worth more than $600,000.

The creation of the five-member coalition – and the secret texts it spawned – also became part of a political fight between the two main contenders in the next mayoral election, Sittenfeld and Councilman Christopher Smitherman.

The two rivals were on opposite sides of the Cranley-Black dispute and have sparred over the importance of the secret text messages.

Shrive is associated with the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes, a conservative, anti-tax group that has ties to Smitherman and routinely mocks Sittenfeld and other Democrats on social media.

Miller is COAST’s treasurer, and Shrive works at the law firm of attorney Chris Finney, COAST’s founder.

Finney’s firm will receive $90,000 in legal fees from city taxpayers as part of the settlement that resolved the texting case.

The settlement states that the group texts and the related conference call should have been public meetings and must be treated as such. Therefore, minutes from both meetings will be entered into council records.

Cameron Knight contributed to this report