U.S. clears Warren cop in ’07 stun-gun incident

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Heidi Gill

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Warren police chief John Mandopolous

A federal civil trial over the matter is set for January.

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — Richard Kovach, the city patrolman whose Tasering of an intoxicated woman at Up A Creek Tavern on East Market Street on Sept. 2, 2007, was broadcast on national television, will not be prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

A federal civil lawsuit is proceeding, however.

Mark J. Kappelhoff, section chief of the justice department’s criminal section, wrote a letter to Kovach in June, notifying him that the department was dropping the case.

“After careful consideration, we concluded that the evidence does not establish a prosecutable violation of the federal criminal civil-rights statutes,” Kappelhoff wrote.

The letter says the Department of Justice began an investigation because of a complaint alleging that Kovach had violated Heidi Gill’s civil rights.

Former Police Chief John Mandopoulos suspended Kovach without pay for 60 days, saying Kovach violated the department’s ethics in several ways, mostly related to his use of a Taser on the woman while she was handcuffed in the back of Kovach’s cruiser and while leading her to another cruiser.

A video shows Gill, 40, of Niles, outside Kovach’s cruiser being jolted by the Taser at one point, followed by her hitting her head on a vehicle.

Mandopoulos said Kovach was guilty of “not taking charge of [his] prisoner and helping her to the second cruiser. This inaction allowed her to fall a second time and rendered her unconscious.”

Mandopoulos also found that Kovach falsified a police report and was untruthful in a statement to Jeff Cole of the department’s Internal Affairs Department in saying that Gill failed to heed his warnings to “desist in her behavior.”

The video of the incident indicated that Kovach did not warn Gill in that manner, Mandopoulos said.

Tim Bowers, acting Warren police chief, said he believes Kovach has learned from the episode.

“To Rich’s credit, he came back from the suspension, and he’s done a good job,” Bowers said.

Bowers said it is important to note that Kovach’s punishment shows that the department has been willing to “discipline our own people, even when they didn’t violate the criminal law.”

Still pending is a federal lawsuit Gill filed in July 2008 against Kovach and the city in which she asks for damages for the dizziness, blackouts, seizures, loss of vision, severe depression, post-traumatic stress and severe pain that she said resulted from Kovach’s actions.

Lawyers are taking depositions from several Warren police officers, department supervisors and Service-Safety Director Doug Franklin in that lawsuit this summer. A trial date is set for Jan. 11, 2010.

Kovach was fired in December 2007 for an unrelated incident Aug. 23, 2007, in which he improperly searched a man leaving USA Gas station on South Street.

Kovach’s firing was overturned by an arbiter, who gave the patrolman his job back with back pay.

Warren attorney Gilbert W.R. Rucker III, who filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit in that matter, said that suit was settled out of court.

runyan@vindy.com