Ex-deputy gives details about job with task force

The former deputy sheriff said he was promised a
promotion.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Then-Mahoning County Deputy Sheriff David Aey initially turned down a request to participate in a regional crime task force, concerned it would interfere with opportunities to make extra cash.

Aey, of Boardman, said then-Maj. Michael Budd, Sheriff Randall Wellington’s righthand man, asked him in June 2003 to serve as the department’s coordinator of the U.S. Marshals Service’s Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force.

“I declined; I had multiple children and I made a decent amount of money on side jobs,” said Aey, the father of five. “I was making money on the side jobs that I didn’t want to give up.”

Then, Aey said, Budd upped the ante.

“He said I’d be made the senior deputy on the force and that a federal grant would give me carte blanche for any overtime I needed to make up the money lost on side jobs,” Aey testified Friday during a hearing to determine his eligibility to remain a sheriff candidate.

The county board of elections ruled Monday that Aey is eligible to stay on the March 4 Democratic primary ballot to challenge Wellington, of Youngstown, who vowed to take the matter to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Aey, who resigned last year to run for sheriff, said Budd wanted him to keep the overtime information confidential, so the deputy would slide his time sheets under the office door of Budd, who would approve the extra money.

Aey was making about $40,000 annually as a deputy and said he received about $15,000 to $17,000 in federal funds a year for his overtime work from 2003 to sometime in 2006. This happened even after budget problems forced the department to take Aey off the task force on a full-time basis in November 2004.

“It was for actual overtime,” Aey said.

Aey said Wellington was aware of what was happening, something the sheriff disputed.

Deputy Jeffrey Duzzny, who also served on the task force, testified Friday that he was present when Budd persuaded Aey to take the job and confirmed Aey’s account. He also said Wellington approved having Aey be the force’s senior deputy.

Aey was known as “one of the hardest side-job workers” in the department, Duzzny said. “He worked 90,000 side jobs and he’d take a big loss working this. Maj. Budd told him that overtime would be abundant and with David being in charge of it, he would pick up the extra money through overtime.”

Also at the hearing, Aey said Budd told him the deputy would be promoted to corporal when the county was on more sound financial footing. The position of corporal was abolished in the department in 2001, so Aey said Budd told him to keep that “hush-hush” as well.

Aey said Budd told him not to take a test for a higher position than deputy.

“We’ll slide you right in and make you a corporal,” Aey testified Budd told him. “... Maj. Budd had authority to do whatever he wanted to do.”

Budd was sentenced to 97 months in prison in July 2005 for violating the civil rights of three jail inmates and for obstructing justice.

skolnick@vindy.com