YOUNGSTOWN City worker faces possible suspension

Four children live at the defendant's North Side home, a deputy says.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- City officials will meet Monday to discuss whether to suspend a city worker charged with drug trafficking.
Law Director John A. McNally IV said he and Mayor George M. McKelvey will "make a decision [on] what status we'll put him in." Such decisions are on a case-by-case basis, McNally said.
Two city patrolmen, for example, were placed on unpaid leave while their case made its way through the courts, McNally said.
McNally, reached by cell phone, was away on business Friday and therefore not able to review the case then.
Charges
Dowdy, 36, of 420 Crandall Ave., was arraigned Friday in municipal court on one count of possession of drugs and two counts of aggravated drug trafficking within 1,000 feet of a school. His North Side home is close to Hayes Middle School.
Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly set bond at $300,000 cash or surety.
Dowdy will be back in court Dec. 19 for a preliminary hearing. Before then, the charges could be transferred to federal court for prosecution.
Dowdy has been a driver-laborer with the street department since 1997.
Joseph Mastropietro, street department superintendent, could not be reached.
House searched
A search warrant was used to enter Dowdy's house Thursday afternoon. The search followed two undercover drug buys and an investigation headed by the U.S. Treasury Department Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
ATF, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, Trumbull and Mahoning County Sheriff's Departments, and Niles and Youngstown police assisted in the monthlong investigation.
About 7 1/2 pounds of powdered cocaine, $60,000 and four firearms were seized, reports show. The cocaine was field tested at the scene.
Dowdy admitted that he's been trafficking in drugs since 1986, said Frank A. D'Alesio, resident agent-in-charge of the Youngstown ATF. D'Alesio described Dowdy as a "pretty sizable dealer."
Mahoning County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Assion, a member of the ATF task force, noted in his report that four children live in the Crandall Avenue home.
D'Alesio said Dowdy's home was equipped with three surveillance cameras, which displayed the street, driveway and back of the house on a split-screen monitor.
meade@vindy.com