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Polivka appears, is silent in court
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Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka appears in Warren Municipal Court on domestic violence charges.
The commissioner was not required to stand before the judge or answer any questions.
STAFF REPORT
WARREN — Dan Polivka, a Trumbull County commissioner charged with misdemeanor domestic violence after he was accused of grabbing his wife, JoAnn, by the neck with both hands and striking her on the cheek, appeared in Warren Municipal Court on Thursday.
Polivka sat in the back of the courtroom, as his attorney, Robert Shaker, talked with Judge Jerry Hayes, sitting by assignment, and Jim Sanders, an assistant Warren law director.
The parties discussed potential jury trial dates in November and another pretrial hearing to take place one week before that. Nothing more was resolved at the hearing, and Polivka did not have to address the judge.
Polivka pleaded innocent to the charge in Warren Municipal Court Aug. 24, the same afternoon the incident is alleged to have taken place. He was released on $2,500 bond and ordered to stay away from his wife.
Howland police arrested Polivka at the Howland branch of the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library a short time after JoAnn Polivka reported the incident.
She told police her husband drove a golf cart into her side of her golf cart, then screamed at her, threw the golf clubs belonging to her male golfing partner “onto the course,” struck his wife, told her she would never see her daughter again, took her cell phone and drove away.
The incident is alleged to have occurred at Old Avalon Golf Course on East Market Street in Howland.
JoAnn Polivka filed for divorce from her husband May 7. The case is pending.
If convicted, Dan Polivka could spend up to six months in jail.