Drink this vodka or get suspended, Shoaf warned

WARREN — The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office is opposing the early release from prison for former Girard Superintendent Joseph M. Shoaf, saying he committed offenses that “can shake the very foundations of our society.”

Shoaf, 41, formerly of Cortland, last week asked Trumbull County Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew Logan to allow him to be released one year early from prison so he can take a laborer’s job in Wickliffe.

“The schools to which we send our children are supposed to be safe harbors. We hand over our most prized possessions to, at times, complete strangers,” Chuck Morrow, assistant county prosecutor, wrote in a response filed with Judge Logan.

“However, when a person to whom we entrust our children commits a criminal offense against them, the results can be dire,” Morrow said.

Shoaf was sentenced to five years in prison in 2003 after being convicted of corrupting another with drugs, intimidation of a victim and cocaine possession.

“During school hours, he used his position of authority to summon the girls from class to his office located at the Girard High School. After earning their trust, he provided them with both cocaine and alcohol,” Morrow said.

On one occasion, a female student tape recorded her meeting with Shoaf, and the superintendent was heard to say he was “sitting on 10 grams [of cocaine] right now,” the filing says.

Shoaf also asked the girl if she could get him additional illegal narcotics, and after the student had ingested cocaine and alcohol, Shoaf demanded that she drink more alcohol, telling her to “do a shot [of vodka] or I will suspend you,” Morrow wrote.

After rumors of the recording surfaced at the school, Shoaf confronted the girl in the hallway, telling her that “as easy as it is for me to get coke, is as easy as it is for me to have someone killed,” Morrow wrote.

“We cannot minimize his unacceptable behavior by reducing his sentence,” Morrow said. “The defendant must continue to be punished by serving the balance of his sentence.”

Morrow added that prosecutors agreed to five years in prison for Shoaf so that the victims would not have to testify, which is “significantly less time” than the maximum sentence that could have been imposed.