Jail guard accused of drug use resigns
By Ed Runyan
The former corrections officer had been fired a year ago for dating female former inmates.
WARREN — Anthony M. Delmont, 35, has resigned his job as corrections officer for the Trumbull County Jail over allegations that he was using heroin.
Delmont, who has addresses in Austintown and Warren, worked as a corrections officer for seven years.
Delmont resigned Feb. 10 after failing a polygraph test the previous day regarding illegal drug use, said Maj. Thomas Stewart of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department.
Stewart said he investigated Delmont at the direction of Sheriff Thomas Altiere after a girlfriend of Delmont’s reported to Howland police that Delmont had assaulted her and used heroin with her in late January.
Stewart said Delmont denied using heroin, but a urine test showed he had an undetermined type of opiate in his system.
Further investigation determined where Delmont might have purchased the drug, Stewart said.
Stewart contacted the drug dealer, who gave Stewart information that Delmont and the woman had purchased two bags of heroin priced at $30 the night that Delmont Jr. was alleged to have used the drug with the woman, Stewart said.
Delmont was placed on paid administrative leave at that point and given the polygraph test, Stewart said.
Delmont was fired about a year ago from the jail for collecting the telephone numbers of female inmates, calling them, texting them and dating them, Stewart said. Some of the contacts were made while Delmont was working, Stewart said.
“He is a predator,” Stewart said.
Disciplinary action was taken against him after a female former inmate filed a complaint, Stewart said. Delmont was off work nearly a year while he fought the dismissal.
An arbitrator gave Delmont his job back with back pay, however, and he had been back to work a short time when the most recent allegations surfaced.
Delmont is the son of Anthony R. Delmont, 53, of Warren, former Trumbull County maintenance director who was convicted in 2006 in common pleas court of theft in office, bribery and money laundering for buying maintenance and cleaning supplies in huge quantities and at exorbitant prices.
The so-called purchasing scandal involved around $400,000 and involved numerous cleaning supply vendors from around Ohio.
Many of the vendors also were convicted on various charges and repaid much of the stolen money.
The older Delmont began serving a three-year prison term for the thefts in July 2007 but was released in June 2008 because he had hypertension, diabetes and terminal cancer and had less than six months to live, according to a doctor working for the state prison system.
runyan@vindy.com