Ex-official: Drop drug charge

By Ed Runyan

The former director of Trumbull County’s JFS has been charged with felony cocaine possession.

WARREN — Tom Mahoney, former director of the Trumbull County Department of Job and Family Services, was fired in March after he was accused of buying cocaine from an employee. In Common Pleas Court Friday, he asked to receive treatment for drug addiction in order to avoid being convicted of a felony charge.

Officials refused to disclose at the time of Mahoney’s firing March 23 what led to the move, but it occurred five days after Kenneth Greep, 46, of Pleasant Valley Road in Niles, was arrested while on the job at JFS on a charge of selling cocaine out of his home.

Mahoney, 55, of Oakwood Street in Girard, now faces a charge of cocaine possession, a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to 12 months in prison.

The procedure outlined in court Friday, however, would allow Mahoney to receive treatment for about one year if the Trumbull County Adult Probation Department deems him a qualified candidate.

If Mahoney completes the program, the charge would be dismissed, said Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor, adding that the procedure is not unique to Mahoney. Becker said the procedure has been used in the past, for example, by doctors.

County personnel documents Becker released Friday indicate that Mahoney was fired from his job paying $107,344 per year for buying drugs from Greep, allowing Greep to remain on the JFS payroll despite knowing that Greep was selling drugs, and for lying when questioned by Trumbull County sheriff’s deputies about Greep’s drug activities.

Mahoney had been director of JFS, formerly known as the welfare department, since March 2000 and had worked in various positions with the county for 26 years.

Becker released a transcript of taped conversations Mahoney had with Greep starting the day after Greep was arrested on drug charges. One of the conversations occurred March 19, when Mahoney left work to go to Greep’s house and spoke to Greep about what evidence investigators might have.

Mahoney asked Greep who might have alerted police to Greep’s drug activities, and Greep said he didn’t know.

“Whoever it is, he’s dead,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney told Greep he would do everything possible to help Greep get his job back and recommended two attorneys.

In a later phone conversation, Greep told Mahoney that investigators know that Mahoney had been at Greep’s house and that investigators obtained a ledger from Greep’s house with the name “Tom” in it.

“Hey, you didn’t tell anybody else you was buying coke off me, did you?” Greep asked Mahoney on one recording.

“No, why,” Mahoney said.

“I just wanted to know, that’s all,” Greep said.

Becker said Greep cooperated with investigators in obtaining the tape recordings.

Greep filled out a county job application on Jan. 22, 2008. The application failed to mention that Greep was in federal prison from 2001 through 2005 on a drug trafficking conviction, according to a March 23 memo to county commissioners from Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins.

After Greep was arrested, Mahoney said Greep was one of several former convicts the agency hires every year as part of a program to help ex-cons re-establish their lives after prison.

Greep began work in September 2008 to fill a temporary position in which he worked full time at $9.25 per hour up to a maximum of 1,500 hours. The job included health care. He primarily shredded files, Mahoney said.

Watkins’ March 23 letter says investigators determined that Mahoney was a “regular cocaine customer of Greep’s,” but Becker said there is no evidence to indicate that Mahoney bought cocaine from Greep before Greep began working at JFS.

Mahoney is expected to return to court in six to eight weeks to plead guilty to the cocaine possession charge once the Probation Department determines whether he qualifies for the treatment program, Becker said.

At that point Judge John M. Stuard would be expected to hold Mahoney’s conviction in abeyance pending Mahoney’s successful completion of a drug treatment program, Becker said.

If he completes the program, his charges will be dismissed, Becker said.

If he fails to complete the program, Judge Stuard could find Mahoney guilty and sentence him, Becker said.

runyan@vindy.com