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Tsagaris’ sentence violation brings rebuke, prison term
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PRISON BOUND: Former Trumbull County Commissioner James Tsagaris will serve nine months in prison for violating his probation on two mail-fraud charges.
By Ed Runyan
AKRON — U.S. District Court Judge Sara Lioi said it appeared James Tsagaris, a former Trumbull County commissioner, showed “complete and utter disregard” for the terms of the 12-months house arrest she gave him in August, so now he’ll serve nine months in federal prison.
Tsagaris had pleaded guilty to two counts of honest-services mail fraud for receiving $36,551 from an unnamed local businessman who did business with the Trumbull County commissioners while Tsagaris was a commissioner.
The charge was mail fraud because he failed to report the money as a loan on state financial- disclosure statements that he mailed in 2005 or 2006.
U.S. Attorney Justin Roberts said in federal court here Thursday that Tsagaris, 75, of Howland, had gone to a Cortland cigar store five times to play cards with friends, drove his sister various places and went to McDonald’s an unspecified number of times.
“Your conduct seems to flaunt and disregard the punishment that was imposed,” Judge Lioi told Tsagaris. His electronically monitored house arrest allowed him to go only to work, the doctor and to church.
“You were given the opportunity to stay in your community ... and you flaunted yourself in showing complete and utter disregard for the conditions the court set for you,” she said.
He will report to prison, apparently later this month.
Tsagaris, who said in August he was suffering from early-onset dementia, admitted to Judge Lioi that he violated some terms of his probation but that some of the trips to the cigar store were legitimate. He said he was driving his sister to doctor’s appointments and the grocery store.
“I guess because of my age and stuff, I’m used to doing things for 75 years,” and it’s hard to change old habits, he said.
Tsagaris said he was working for a company located near a bowling alley on Elm Road in Warren. That job required him to travel to the cigar store three of the five times, he said, but noted that he doesn’t play cards, so he doesn’t know why someone would accuse him of that.
Another accusation — that he went to a bowling alley — was incorrect, he said. His car was parked only at his employer’s business, he said.
Roberts said the FBI was involved in tracking down tips from people who reported seeing Tsagaris in places where it didn’t appear he belonged.
“I did go to lunch a little longer than I was supposed to,” Tsagaris told Judge Lioi, but the judge shot back, “Why were you at lunch? You were limited to very specific things.”
Roberts said the U.S. attorney’s office had no desire to send Tsagaris to prison, but “it was thrown in our lap because he was seen in the community. We can’t help but feel like the defendant has rubbed our face in it by violating his probation and flaunting what was essentially a gift.”
Tsagaris avoided prison in August because of his clean record, age and medical problems.
In addition to the nine-month prison sentence, Judge Lioi ordered Tsagaris to serve an additional six months of electronically monitored house arrest after prison, pay the $4,000 fine she imposed in August, $500 per month starting after he returns home from prison, and three years’ probation.
Roberts said he thought it would be fair “given the time of year and the need to get his medical affairs in order” for Tsagaris to self-report to prison after Jan. 1 instead of going to prison immediately.
Instead, Judge Lioi said Tsagaris has “a very short time” to report to the U.S. Marshals Service and that he has secured the medications he needs for prison. The Marshals Service will report back to the court within 10 days, and then Tsagaris will report to prison, Judge Lioi said, regardless of the holidays, she said.
“It’s not the time of year I’m going to give consideration to,” Judge Lioi said.
Roberts said the money, which Tsagaris never paid back, had a “corrupting influence,” but there was no indication that Trumbull County had lost any money as a result of votes Tsagaris cast as commissioner that were favorable to the businessman.
Federal officials have refused to identify the businessman, but a federal filing last week accusing Maureen Cronin, a former Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge of the same offenses as Tsagaris, says her case is related to the Tsagaris case.
Federal documents say Cronin, a former three-term judge, took $18,000 in cash from an unnamed senior executive of an area business in the back seat of that person’s car and handled more than 50 civil lawsuits involving that company and its affiliates.
After the sentencing, Tsagaris and his attorney, Michael Bowler of Akron, again refused to identify the businessman.
runyan@vindy.com