2002

2002
Aug. 4: The Vindicator begins a series of stories chronicling excessive spending and poor record-keeping in the Trumbull County maintenance department.
Sept. 1: The county prosecutor and the sheriff ask the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to begin looking into maintenance department supply purchasing.
Sept. 13: Acting on the advice of Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, the county commissioners suspend doing business with LID Chemical Inc. and Tri-County Supplies.
Sept. 20: Watkins asks commissioners to cease all janitorial and maintenance supply orders. Maintenance department director Tony Delmont and Patti Patros, his administrative assistant, have duties temporarily adjusted so they are not involved with ordering or receiving supplies.
Oct. 29: A team of county employees does an inventory of county supplies under the direction of the prosecutor and finds a pattern of poor bookkeeping at the maintenance department, excessive spending and money missing from machines dispensing feminine-hygiene products.
November: The county commissioners appoint two retired purchasing directors to a volunteer blue-ribbon committee to help come up with better ways for the county to order and receive supplies.
December: Local grand jury begins hearing evidence on maintenance purchasing. That procedure continues.
2003
February: Delmont is involved in an accident in a county truck and files for workers' compensation. He has not returned to work.
Grand jury meets again and at least eight county workers are asked to testify.
March 19: Countywide layoffs result in 19 of 30 maintenance department workers' being furloughed. Two employees have been recalled.
May: Barry Jacobson, mayor of Lyndhurst and co-owner of Envirochemical Inc. of Bedford Heights, says he sold his company's toilet bowl cleaner to his city for $25 peer case and to Trumbull County for as much as $169 per case. Jacobson has since resigned as mayor of the Cleveland suburb.
June: More than 1,380 empty air freshener and cleaning fluid bottles discovered in Trumbull County storerooms were intended for use with bulk dispensers the county bought in 1997 but doesn't use, according to a statement from Envirochemical.
Sept. 18: Jacobson pleads guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to bribery and complicity to theft in office -- both felonies.
In an affidavit, he says he paid the head of the county's maintenance department "tens of thousands of dollars" to get contracts and that he sold the county janitorial supplies at grossly inflated prices.
As part of his plea agreement, Jacobson is to pay back $200,000 to the county and faces up to six months in prison.
Sept. 19: Trumbull County commissioners voted 2-1 to place Delmont on unpaid administrative leave. Commissioner Michael J. O'Brien cast the dissenting vote, saying there was already enough evidence to fire Delmont and that the prosecutor's office said the firing would be defensible.