MAHONING COUNTY Fired deputy files lawsuit

Sheriff Wellington said the firing was justified, but a lawsuit argues otherwise.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- An Austintown man and his wife are seeking $1.2 million from the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department, alleging he was unjustly fired from his job as a corporal there.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court by Davanzo and Rita Tate of Tulane Avenue. Davanzo Tate was hired in November 1985 and fired in June 2000, the suit says.
It alleges that Tate was treated differently from other deputies because he is black, and because he "exposed the existence of the good old white boys network" within the department.
Sheriff Randall Wellington said he had not seen the lawsuit. However, he denied the allegations that Tate was fired because of racial bias.
He said Tate's case went through the department's disciplinary process, with the results of an internal investigation presented to a hearing officer who found probable cause to support the firing. That was appealed to an arbiter, who upheld the hearing officer's firing.
"We were justified in terminating him," Wellington said.
About the lawsuit
The suit says Tate was targeted for retaliation after an April 2000 situation involving him and a Youngstown policeman, Daniel Mikus.
Mikus said he was held against his will for some 90 minutes at the county jail, where he'd gone to drop off a prisoner. He said Tate, who was a supervisor in the booking department, became angry with him and would not let him out of the building.
Subsequent news articles about the matter cast the department in a negative light, which caused Wellington to lean on Tate, the suit says.
It also says Wellington deliberately creates circumstances within the department that make black deputies look bad so he can take disciplinary action against them, while white deputies are given preferential treatment. Wellington denied that as well.
After Tate's termination from the sheriff's department, he got a job with the Youngstown Youth Academy. While there, he was charged with punching a Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center worker in March 2001.
Tate said at the time that he accidentally hit the woman in the mouth while raising his arms to protect himself from being spit on by a juvenile who had become unruly.
The matter went to trial in June 2000, and Tate was acquitted.
Tate's suit says the sheriff's department incarcerated and brought charges against him by coercing the juvenile to press charges, which the sheriff denies.
"We didn't sign a complaint against him, the victim did," he said.
bjackson@vindy.com