County: Make man pay for damages

The judge will rule sometime after Oct. 19.

WARREN — The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office is attempting to force a 38-year-old Austintown man who held police at bay for nine hours at the Holiday Inn MetroPlex in Libert y to pay $12,334 in restitution for the cost of police officers and damage to the hotel.

At a hearing Tuesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, Lt. Robin Lees, commander of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force, said he estimated the cost for the 36 deputies and police officers who responded to the July 18 episode to be $5,727.

The task force was called out by Liberty Police the day of the standoff with Bobby J. Mock.

Lees calculated the cost by averaging the high and low wages paid to the officers on the scene that day and calculating four hours of overtime for each. He said contacting each officer and totaling their wages for the episode would take days.

David Toepfer, the assistant county prosecutor handling the case, said this is the first time he has tried to recoup the costs for the task force. If costs are not recovered, individual departments pay the salaries for members working for the task force. The participating departments are in both Mahoning and Trumbull counties, with Youngstown being the largest contributor of manpower.

The task force and its Crisis Response Team is made up of officers from a large number of police departments, Toepfer said.

Vanessa Moyer, director of sales at the MetroPlex, said she calculated the damage to Mock’s room to be $4,600, and lost revenue the hotel experienced by having to make hotel guests leave until the standoff was over to be $2,037.

Among the damages she listed were a broken window, damage to walls and the ceiling and broken bed frame, armoire, mirror and art work.

On cross-examining from defense attorney Anthony Consoldane, she agreed that much of the damage was caused by the police officers who shot pepper spray through the window, and other actions by police officers.

Judge Andrew Logan said he would give the attorneys until Oct. 19 to submit briefs on the issue before he rules on whether to order Mock to pay the restitution.

Mock was sentenced in Judge Logan’s court late last month to one year in prison on charges of vandalism and inducing panic. He was earlier sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in Mahoning County on unrelated charges and still faces 15 other felony charges in Mahoning County related to break-ins.

The standoff occurred after police attempted to serve warrants on him and another man for several burglaries. He took a hostage at gunpoint and threatened to harm her and himself.

runyan@vindy.com