2 ex-deputies guilty of charity theft

By Jordan Cohen

WARREN — For years, Peter Pizzulo and Anthony Leshnack enforced the law as sergeants in the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Department.

On Friday, both men became convicted felons after pleading no contest to a charge of grand theft contained in a bill of information. Pizzulo, 46, of Howland, and Leshnack, 41, of Girard, were convicted of stealing thousands of dollars from the Ohio Narcotics Officers Association, a charity they founded in 2004. The organization was supposed to have raised funds to educate the public about drug and alcohol abuse.

The grand-theft charge, a fourth-degree felony, means that the stolen money amounted to less than $100,000 but more than $5,000. Investigators said they’re still determining how much was actually taken.

Judge Wyatt McKay of common pleas court, who found both men guilty, said they could receive jail sentences of six to 18 months and fines of $5,000 each.

Special Prosecutor David Joyce said both men wrote checks for numerous personal uses, such as vacations, tools, dance lessons and summer camps for other family members, handguns and participation in Las Vegas poker tournaments by Leshnack and a woman who was not charged because she was not an association board member.

“We didn’t find any money that went to charity,” Joyce said, calling the ex-deputies’ crimes “incredible stupidity.”

Pizzulo and Leshnack became the objects of an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation last June at the request of Sheriff Thomas Altiere, who later determined the men had converted the funds to their personal use.

The pair resigned in November after the sheriff threatened to fire them.

Joyce disclosed that the charity raised more than $750,000, but nearly 90 percent of the money, more than $600,000, went to Xentel Inc., a telemarketing firm with offices in Florida and Canada. Pizzulo and Leshnack had contracted with Xentel to handle the fundraising.

“What they [Xentel] are doing is perfectly legal, and all it does is line the pockets of greedy telemarketers,” Joyce complained to reporters after the hearing. “We need to let the [state] Legislature know that it’s not right.”

“Our work is very labor-intensive,” responded Len Wolstenholme, Xentel’s director of public affairs. “It’s easy for those who don’t understand what we do to make unfounded criticism.”

Judge McKay ordered Pizzulo and Leshnack to forfeit $20,000 raised by their charity and still in their possession. The money will be turned over to the trust organization division of the state attorney general for charitable distribution.

Joyce declined to say whether he thinks the two former deputies should receive a prison sentence. “I’ll leave that up to the judge,” Joyce said.

Leshnack and Pizzulo are free on $5,000 personal-recognizance bonds and will face presentence investigations before sentencing is scheduled.

Ironically, the two had to undergo processing before their release Friday afternoon at the same location where they had booked numerous criminal defendants during their time as deputy sheriffs — the county jail.