COLUMBIANA COUNTY Salem businessman enters plea in sex case
Two felony charges were reduced to misdemeanors.
LISBON -- Salem businessman Arthur Spack will be sentenced on sexual misdemeanor convictions Nov. 21 in Columbiana County Common Pleas Court.
Spack, 57, of Fink Road, Kensington, pleaded no contest Wednesday to five third-degree misdemeanor charges.
In a plea agreement, the charges were reduced from compelling prostitution, a second-degree felony; one count of gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony; and three counts of sexual imposition, each a misdemeanor.
Spack had entered innocent pleas to the original charges in March.
On Wednesday, Spack pleaded no contest to charges of soliciting sex for hire, sexual contact with a person 13 to 16, and three counts of sexual contact or reckless behavior offensive to a person not his wife.
Judge David Tobin declared Spack to be guilty of the lesser charges.
The charges stem from offenses between July 2001 and January 2003.
Allegation
The compelling prostitution charge, reduced to solicitation, stems from allegations that Spack offered a 15-year-old girl money for a sex act in 2001. The offense is said to have occurred at Mimi's Cafe on Penn Avenue in Salem, which Spack owns.
He resigned as mayor of Summitville, saying he needed to concentrate on his defense.
Sentencing is set for 9 a.m. Nov. 21 in Judge Tobin's court. Spack could be sentenced to up to 300 days in the county jail for the reduced charges.
As originally charged, he could have faced up to nine years and six months in prison.