Probe leads to firing of JFS chief
Tom Mahoney
By Ed Runyan
The fired department head had worked in government for 26 years.
WARREN — Trumbull County officials are refusing to say what prompted Monday’s sudden firing of Tom Mahoney, director of Trumbull County Department of Job and Family Services.
Detectives with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department are investigating Mahoney, however, said Don Guarino, chief of operations for Sheriff Thomas Altiere.
“We’ve got to see what shakes out,” Guarino said Tuesday.
Guarino would not say how long the investigation had been going on, though he said it is near the end.
Neither he, Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins nor Commissioner Frank Fuda would discuss the nature of the accusations against Mahoney, who worked in government in Trumbull County for 26 years.
Mahoney’s personnel file contained no reprimands covering the eight years he was director of JFS, and Fuda said he was not aware of any reprimands.
Mahoney, who has been director of the agency, formerly known as the Department of Human Services, or welfare department, since March 1, 2000, received word Monday afternoon from deputy sheriffs that commissioners had fired him, Fuda said.
The deputies helped him remove his personal effects from his offices on North Park Avenue and escorted him from the building, Fuda said.
The action followed an emergency county commissioners meeting Monday, at which time commissioners passed a resolution to fire Mahoney, Fuda said.
James Misocky, chief of the civil division of the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office, was present at the closed meeting, Watkins said. Misocky was there as the legal representative for the county commissioners, Watkins said.
The meeting was closed to the public on the grounds that Misocky and the commissioners would be discussing personnel matters. Watkins said Mahoney’s firing is tied to an “administrative investigation” that is being conducted. He declined to elaborate.
Fuda said commissioners are in the process of selecting an interim director.
Mahoney, of Girard, who earned $107,344 per year, could not be reached to comment.
Before he was hired as JFS director, Mahoney worked seven years as director of the Private Industry Council of Trumbull County on Youngstown-Warren Road in Warren. He was assistant executive director for the agency for seven years before that, dating back to 1983.
He worked seven years before that as special programs coordinator for the Trumbull County Employment and Training Agency on High Street in Warren.
Police also went to JFS last Wednesday, arresting a Vienna Township man, Kenneth A. Greep, 46, while he was working at JFS on a charge of cocaine trafficking and cocaine possession.
The arrest followed an investigation dating back about six months by the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force that led to a raid on the home where Greep was living. JFS hired Greep in September to a job paying $9.25 an hour plus health-care benefits.
Mahoney had said Greep was one of a couple nonviolent offenders who get hired at the agency every year on a temporary basis to help them re-establish their lives after being released from prison. Greep had done time in federal prison for selling marijuana.
Mahoney said Greep’s primary job was shredding files.
runyan@vindy.com