Mahoning budget crunch affects extradition

STAFF REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Picture the Scales of Justice statue peeking over her blindfold to see if she can afford the cost of bringing a fugitive back to town.

Limited funds means the cost to transport fugitives from distant places has to be weighed against the crime charged, said Nicholas Modarelli, chief assistant in the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s Office who also oversees extraditions. Extradition, he said, is done on a case-by-case basis.

Last year, the prosecutor’s office paid $12,956 to bring back eight fugitives who had left the state, records show. Three were in Florida and one each in Utah, Louisianna, Tennesee, Alabama and Arizona.

Modarelli said that if a fugitive is located a one-day drive away, two deputies drive to get him (or her), spend the night in a hotel and return the next day. For longer trips, two deputies fly out, rent a car, spend the night and fly back the next day with the fugitive.

Warrants generally show up for those who flee when they come in contact with law enforcement in their new surroundings, such as a routine traffic stop. Sometimes, snitches give local detectives a fugitive’s whereabouts.

The pickup radius on a warrant tells law enforcement whether the fugitive they come across should be held for extradition. The National Crime Information Center computer lets law enforcement in all states search a variety of information that includes people wanted on warrants, missing persons, stolen guns and cars and so forth.

States have their own computer systems that link to the NCIC computer, said Mahoning County Sheriff’s Maj. James M. Lewandowski. He said warrants in NCIC have a separate field that lists radius limitations such as county, adjacent states or east of the Mississippi, for example, depending on what the local arresting agency wants to do.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com