GIRARD Police give attorney list of guns

The Warren Township man's lawyer plans to sell the guns and give his client the money.
By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
GIRARD -- City police officers have complied with a judge's order to provide a local attorney with a list of guns seized from a Warren Township man's former home.
A list of 46 guns that were confiscated from 43-year-old James Kerchum was filed Wednesday in Girard Municipal Court. Two weeks ago, Judge Michael A. Bernard ordered Atty. J. Gerald Ingram, who represents the officers and a federal agent, to turn over the list or show why they shouldn't be held in contempt.
Among those named in the judge's order are Police Chief John Ross and Dennis MacAllister, an agent with the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
A representative from Ingram's Youngstown office said she filed the list with the court Wednesday.
Will sell guns
Kerchum's lawyer, Albert A. Palombaro, told the judge he could not give the guns back to Kerchum, since he's a felon, but he plans to sell the guns and give the money to Kerchum, who received many of them from his grandfather.
Some of the guns were found in April 1999 in Kerchum's Girard home. Others were found in the Warren home of Michael A. Visnick.
Visnick, who was charged with possessing the guns taken from Kerchum's home, was found guilty in federal court, but the case was dismissed after his conviction was overturned by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kerchum pleaded guilty to two weapons violations in April 2000 in federal court in Youngstown and was sentenced to six months' house arrest.
Kerchum is a former activist and organizer of Trumbull County Civilian Oversight Commission. He made news in the corruption trial of James A. Traficant Jr. when he contended, without a jury present, that he was recruited by the FBI in 1998 to investigate the former congressman and given the code name "Cheeze One."
He said in that trial he found no evidence of wrongdoing by Traficant. That testimony was dismissed by the judge.
slshaulis@vindy.com