MAHONING COUNTY Deputy gets 15-day suspension over threatening call to agency

The city prosecutor has decided no criminal charge should be brought against the deputy.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Frederick E. White, the Mahoning County deputy sheriff who threatened violence at the child support enforcement agency, has been suspended for 15 days.
Before taking part in a predisciplinary hearing, White agreed to the suspension at a conference that included a union representative.
The 49-year-old deputy has been with the sheriff's department since December 1989. He could not be reached.
Sheriff Randall A. Wellington advised White by letter that the suspension, effective this week, expires March 27. The discipline does not affect White's health-care benefits.
The sheriff had placed White on administrative leave Feb. 8, pending an internal affairs investigation.
Voice mail: A conversation White had with one employee of the county Child Support Enforcement Agency was recorded and placed on the voice mail of his caseworker, reports show. A supervisor reported it to the sheriff's department.
Among the recorded comments, which included profanity, White said he would "come down there with a gun" and "I'll come postal."
The sheriff has said that White knew saying "postal," which implies workplace killings, would be interpreted as a threat.
White called the agency after he received a letter that showed he was $1,500 in arrears, police said. He tried to explain that the support payments come out of his paycheck and felt the letter was harassment, according to reports.
Benjamin Joltin, an assistant city prosecutor, reviewed the case and decided to not file an aggravated menacing charge. Joltin said he could not prove White knowingly made the threats because the woman who spoke to White didn't think his case worker's voice mail worked and therefore assumed that her conversation with him would not end up on it.
White had been assigned to the corrections division, working in the jail.