Ex-commissioner Tsgaris gets house arrest

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Former Trumbull Commissioner James Tsagaris

‘You owed the citizens more,’ the judge told the former county commissioner.

AKRON — U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi asked Justin Roberts, the federal prosecutor handling the case against former Trumbull County Commissioner James Tsagaris a second time, whether county residents lost any money as a result of the honest-services mail fraud that Tsagaris committed in 2004 and 2005.

“The case does not, as we have it, indicate any dollar loss to the county,” Prosecutor Justin Roberts said.

A short time later, Tsagaris walked out of federal court.

Judge Lioi sentenced Tsagaris, 75, of Howland, to one year of electronically monitored house arrest to begin within 30 days, three years’ probation and a $4,000 fine.

During his house arrest, he’ll be allowed to attend church and go to work and doctor’s appointments.

His charges said Tsagaris accepted a loan of $36,551 from an unidentified local businessman in late 2004 while he was a commissioner without reporting it on state financial disclosure statements in 2005 or 2006.

Then he acted on behalf of that businessman, voting in his capacity as a commissioner on matters that would personally benefit that businessman, Judge Lioi said.

She did not disclose the name of the businessman or the type of business he runs or specify what votes Tsagaris cast that would have benefited the businessman.

Roberts; Dean Hoskin, the FBI agent handling the case; and Tsagaris also would not disclose the businessman’s identity. In months of asking county officials and business people, not one has said he knows for sure who the businessman was.

“It would be a cold day in hell,” is how Tsagaris’ lawyer, Michael B. Bowler of Akron, put it when asked Tuesday afternoon if he would tell the public who the businessman was.

When Tsagaris was asked who the businessman was, he said, “I don’t know myself. I don’t remember.”

Tsagaris would have received between 18 and 24 months in federal prison if not for the special circumstances outlined in court.

First, Tsagaris’ crime did not result in the loss of any county tax money, Judge Lioi said.

Second, Tsagaris has several medical conditions, including early- onset dementia, that will require expensive medical care, she said.

And Tsagaris deserved special consideration “for the law-abiding life you have led up to now,” Judge Lioi said.

Judge Lioi said she reviewed a presentence investigation prepared by the court’s probation department that said Tsagaris had never been convicted of a single crime before now. She also read 32 letters written in his support.

In court, Donald R. Ford Sr., a retired longtime county common pleas and Ohio appeals court judge, spoke on behalf of Tsagaris, saying he has known him for decades and deemed him “a good public official.”

In court, Bowler added about Tsagaris: “He’s just a fine human being. I don’t know anyone who thinks he ought to go to prison.”

Bowler said that with Tsagaris’ early-onset dementia, as documented by Dr. Phillip P. Malvasi of Niles in a letter, “prison would have a [harmful] effect” on him.

When Tsagaris spoke in court, he said, “I know what I did was completely wrong. I made a mistake ... it’s a mistake I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”

Roberts did say the case was about the “corrupting influence” of a loan that Tsagaris received and never paid back and that “there’s a need for deterrence. We’re talking about an elected official, and we’re talking about a lot of money.”

Judge Lioi said the federal statute allowing for a reduced sentence seemed to be written exactly for someone like Tsagaris because of his lack of criminal history and “good works.”

“The sentence is not meant to minimize or diminish your conduct. You owed the citizens more. You owed them disclosure,” she said.

“In the end, no money was taken from the county, though you voted on things you should not have voted on.”

Richard Houk of Newton Township, a member of the Trumbull County Soil and Water Conservation District board of supervisors, attended the hearing in support of Tsagaris.

He said afterward that Tsagaris has been a great friend to the agricultural community since the mid-1990s because of his help in securing funding for the county’s agricultural education center in Cortland.

runyan@vindy.com