Ex-deputy gets prison for violating probation

YOUNGSTOWN — A former Mahoning County deputy sheriff is going to prison for three years after violating her probation by being arrested Dec. 20 on a shoplifting charge.

Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court imposed the prison time Thursday on Kim Marciano, 43, of Wampum Drive, after she admitted violating her probation by being arrested on a theft charge. The charge, which is pending in Mahoning County Court, Boardman, alleges she tried to steal $145 worth of clothing from Macy’s at Southern Park Mall.

The judge had put Marciano on two years’ probation in January after she pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a rental car, passing a bad check and theft, all fifth-degree felonies stemming from 2006 incidents.

The charges were to be dismissed if she successfully completed follow-up to drug rehabilitation and fulfilled other terms of her probation.

Judge Krichbaum warned her then, however, that violating her probation could result in up to three years in prison.

David Toepfer, assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, appeared here as a special prosecutor because Marciano’s brother, Robert E. Bush Jr., is chief of the criminal division in the Mahoning County prosecutor’s office.

Toepfer asked the judge to imprison Marciano for 18 months, but Marciano’s lawyer, John Perrotta, asked the judge to follow the Adult Parole Authority’s recommendation to keep her on probation.

Marciano told the judge she did not relapse onto illegal drugs, but “felt overwhelmed’’ after stopping a prescription medication in October while attending nursing school and caring for her ailing son.

“It just sickens me that we’re in this position now,” the judge said. “You were afforded an extraordinary remedy and opportunity” for treatment in lieu of conviction, the judge added.

Marciano was with the sheriff’s department from 1994 until last year.

The bad check charge pertained to a bounced $8,000 check Marciano wrote Feb. 2, 2006, for a car at a Meridian Road dealership. The original theft charge pertained to a May 10, 2006, incident at the Boardman Wal-Mart.