Police responded to report of ‘domestic dispute’ at Ohio governor candidate’s home in 2019

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In August 2019, police in Bexley, Ohio, responded to a report of a “domestic dispute” at the home of Dr. Amy Acton.

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Acton — then director of the state Department of Health, now a Democratic candidate for governor — removed a mirror from the wall, “shattering the glass” when she “became upset” because she felt her husband was “upsetting her,” according to a police report. She told officers she had been drinking, had taken an unknown amount of prescription medication and was about to leave in her car before her husband, who also told police he had been drinking, talked her out of it, according to the report.

A doctor sent to check on Acton recommended he go to the hospital, but Acton “refused,” according to the police report. Police determined there was no evidence of physical violence between Acton and her husband, only a “verbal argument over his extended work hours.”

A few months later, Acton would become one of Ohio’s most visible leaders as the state battled Covid, advising and appearing almost daily alongside Gov. Mike DeWine as they issued stay-at-home orders and shared the latest case numbers. Acton’s time in the spotlight earned him passionate admirers, as well as vicious criticism. And as a rare Democrat serving in a Republican governor’s cabinet, she quickly became a candidate for elected office herself after resigning from the post in June 2020.

Acton, 60, will likely face Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotechnology entrepreneur backed by DeWine and President Donald Trump, in the general election.

His campaign on Friday challenged and sought to clarify several elements of the police report. Acton and her husband had returned home after dinner, where she had a drink, according to the campaign’s written response to this article. During a “verbal disagreement over her long work hours,” Acton “bumped into a wall hanging that fell,” according to the campaign. She then went to bed and was sleeping when police arrived, according to the campaign.

Officers were dispatched to the home at 9:45 p.m., according to the police report, which does not indicate how they were alerted to the incident.

Acton’s campaign said she was not “intoxicated” at any point during the evening and that the prescription drugs mentioned in the police report were ones she had taken regularly for years.

The campaign also disputed that there was any reason for Acton to go to the hospital, saying any “harm, injury or impairment” would have been noted in the police report.

Police officials in Bexley, a suburb of Columbus, did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

“Amy Acton has worked around the clock on behalf of Ohioans while serving as health director,” Acton spokesperson Addie Bullock said in an emailed statement that also criticized Ramaswamy and his policy proposals “while Ohioans continue to reject him and his cost-increasing scams.”

The 2019 incident at Acton’s home has so far not been publicly reported. It was also not something that was widely known, if at all, within the DeWine administration. The governor, according to his spokesperson, was not happy to first learn of the affair from NBC News.

“Prior to your investigation, Governor DeWine was unaware of the 2019 incident and associated police report involving Dr. Acton,” the spokesperson, Dan Tierney, wrote in an email response to questions. “The governor holds the highest standards of conduct for his staff. Given that the allegations in the report are deeply troubling, Governor DeWine might have expected that Dr. Acton would have brought them to his attention immediately, and he is very disappointed that this did not happen.”

DeWine has in the past widely praised Acton. His support for Ramaswamy, 40, came relatively late and reluctantly, after the governor tried unsuccessfully to recruit Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel, a former Ohio State football coach, in the primary.

Ohio leans more decidedly Republican, having elected only one Democratic governor in the past 36 years. Reliable, independent polls are rare, but several surveys have shown a close race, giving Democrats hope of an upset.

Acton’s performance as health director stood out as a major factor in the race. Fox News recently removed an article from its sports affiliate OutKick that accused Acton of harassing social media users for ignoring social distancing guidelines. The tweets did not come from Acton, but from an account impersonating him.

The episode is an example of how Acton’s candidacy reignited the debate over pandemic-related shutdowns that she advised DeWine to implement. She became a target for right-wing activists and protesters, some of whom reportedly brandished guns and signs scrawled with anti-Semitic messages in front of the Statehouse in Columbus and in front of her home. Acton, who is Jewish, downplayed this scrutiny as a factor in her resignation in June 2020, saying at the time that her decision would give her more time to devote to her family.

DeWine, drawing on the cliché “not all heroes wear capes,” described Acton as a “hero” who wore a “white coat” when announcing his departure. Acton remained with the administration for several more weeks, serving as a health advisor before officially leaving in August 2020.

Later in 2020, after Acton gave an interview to The New Yorker, the magazine reported that she began “worrying about being forced to sign health orders that violated her Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.”

As a first-time candidate for elected office, Acton relied less on the prominent role she played as DeWine’s top health adviser and more on her personal narrative. She highlights how she grew up poor in Youngstown, a difficult childhood marked at times by hunger and homelessness.

After receiving his medical license in 1994, Acton practiced as a pediatrician and later earned a master’s degree in public health from Ohio State University. She was the last chief of staff appointed by DeWine in 2019. Those close to DeWine at the time emphasized how he deliberately identified a qualified medical professional for the job rather than rewarding a career bureaucrat or political loyalist.

It was a decision that initially seemed to pay off at the start of Covid. DeWine’s daily televised briefings, often with Acton at his side, became fixtures in Ohio. Acton herself became a household name, so beloved that a company printed T-shirts in her honor.

While the Republican base vilified DeWine and Acton for their initially aggressive handling of the pandemic, both remained popular in broader circles. Democrats tried to recruit Acton to run for an open Senate seat in 2022 — an option she strongly considered but decided to reject. The same year, DeWine managed to get re-elected, helped by Democrats and independents who appreciated his handling of Covid.

Republicans fighting to keep the governor’s mansion after DeWine leaves office, for a limited term, have called Acton a quitter.

“What did Amy Acton do when the Legislature started to respond? Amy Acton resigned,” state Senate President Rob McColley said at an audience in January, after he was introduced as Ramaswamy’s running mate for lieutenant governor. “Ohio needs a businessman, not a bureaucrat. Ohio needs a maker, not a quitter. Ohio needs a visionary, not a victim. Ohio needs someone who will focus on affordability, not someone who will implement lockdown policies that will raise our prices.”

Although DeWine supported Ramaswamy, he also tried to shield Acton from pandemic-related criticism.

“The decisions that were made during Covid, those were my decisions, so no one should blame someone else if they don’t like it,” DeWine told the NBC affiliate in Columbus in December. “The responsibility lies with me.”