EAST LIVERPOOL Officer pleads to charges

Sentencing is set for April; a felony charge was dropped.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- An East Liverpool police officer faces a possible jail sentence after pleading guilty to misdemeanor charges of obstructing justice and criminal mischief.
Martin Ward, 34, entered the pleas Wednesday before Judge C. Ashley Pike of Columbiana County Common Pleas Court as part of a deal in which special prosecutor William McGinnis of Canton agreed to drop a felony charge of tampering with evidence.
McGinnis recommended that Ward be sentenced to probation, but Judge Pike may still order a jail term at a sentencing set for 11 a.m. April 12.
Obstructing justice is a first-degree misdemeanor bearing a six-month maximum sentence. Criminal mischief is a third-degree misdemeanor that carries a top sentence of 60 days in jail.
The dropped felony carries an ultimate five-year sentence.
Source of charges
The charges of obstructing justice and tampering with evidence stem from authorities' allegations that Ward tossed out a bullet and casing from a Nov. 10 episode in which Ward was in a vehicle with a woman and her 2-year-old daughter.
During that time, Ward said, a handgun belonging to him accidentally went off. No one was injured.
Ward insisted he was off duty and that the handgun involved was not his police-issued firearm.
The loss of the bullet and casing prevented authorities from verifying Ward's account, however.
He also was accused of urging others to make false statements in the resulting probe.
The criminal mischief charge stems from Ward having broken liquor bottles in the driveway of a Lisbon Avenue resident in East Liverpool on April 8 or 9.
Ward, who is free on bond, is on unpaid leave from the department, McGinnis said. McGinnis was appointed special prosecutor partly because a police officer was involved.