GOLDBERG CASE Judge upholds all counts except one

Goldberg was indicted on 31 state counts last March.
YOUNGSTOWN -- A visiting judge in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court has upheld 30 counts of an indictment against disbarred attorney Richard D. Goldberg, while dismissing one count.
Goldberg, a former medical malpractice attorney, is serving a 57-month federal prison sentence for bilking clients out of some $4.4 million they should have gotten in lawsuit settlements.
Judge Stephen A. Yarbrough denied a request Thursday to drop 30 state charges, ruling that Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains never reneged on a promise not to press criminal charges.
The count Yarbrough dismissed happened before the enactment of a relevant statute.
Goldberg had been sentenced federally in November 1999 after pleading guilty to several federal counts of mail fraud and bank fraud.
The Mahoning County Prosecutor's Office indicted him on a state charge of aggravated theft that December. They replaced that indictment with a 31-count indictment in March 2001.
Arguments
Golberg's attorneys had argued that several of the counts are barred by statutes of limitations and that three corrupt activity counts are repetitive and should be combined into one count.
They also argued that the indictment breached an agreement Goldberg made with the county prosecutor when he pleaded guilty in federal court.
Goldberg said Gains had agreed not to prosecute him at the state level in exchange for the guilty pleas in federal court.
Judge Yarbrough found that no such agreement was made. If one had been made, he ruled, it would have been unenforceable because Goldberg failed to fully cooperate with federal authorities.