Ex-sheriff's officer sentenced for drugs

The drug charges were almost four years old.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A former lieutenant in the Mahoning County Sheriff's Department has been sentenced to four years in prison and fined 1,000 after he pleaded guilty to three counts of drug possession and three counts of drug trafficking.
Michael S. "Beef" Terlecky, 51, of Leffingwell Road, Canfield, drew the sentence Thursday from Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, who said Terlecky would be on parole for three years after his release from prison. A sport utility vehicle used in the drug sales is also being forfeited.
Terlecky, who left the sheriff's department in 1988, served eight months in federal prison for taking mob bribes while he was a lieutenant.
Robert E. Duffrin, assistant county prosecutor, recommended a two-year prison sentence, and Terlecky and his lawyer, Don L. Hanni, asked that Terlecky be put on probation for the drug offenses. When Terlecky entered his plea last month, the prosecution agreed to drop four drug trafficking counts and two drug possession counts.
The trafficking charges stemmed from undercover buys of more than 200 OxyContin painkilling pills, which occurred mostly along U.S. Route 224, and the possession charges stemmed from his having oxycodone (the active ingredient in OxyContin) and Valium in his residence when authorities raided it and arrested him Aug. 29, 2003, Duffrin said. Offenses occurred between April 7 and Aug. 29, 2003.
Addiction
Terlecky become addicted to medications prescribed for him after a foot injury and "is not penitentiary material at his stage of life and in his present physical condition" of ill health, Hanni told the judge.
Terlecky, who walks with a cane, told the judge he didn't profit from drug sales.
But Patrolman Robert Patton of the Youngstown Police Department, an investigator on the task force that probed the case for more than a year, said after court that Terlecky profited because workers' compensation likely paid for most of the drugs he was selling.
"You gave no consideration at all to the many families you probably screwed up," the judge said before imposing the sentence.
The case was long delayed due to multiple postponements of the plea hearing because of Terlecky's ill health and his use of post-surgery pain medication that could have affected his decision-making, Duffrin said. Terlecky will be eligible for early judicial release after he serves 180 days in prison.