Court filing seeks records from YSU

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Attorneys for Ivan Maldonado have filed a mandamus action with the 7th District Court of Appeals asking that Youngstown State University be compelled to turn over records they say they need to show that Maldonado’s firing last July was improper.

The filing says an attorney for the university has acknowledged that one of the actions Maldonado was fired for — threatening and menacing a co-worker — was “nothing more than a ‘threat of legal action.’”

The university has said that Maldonado was fired because of his unsatisfactory job performance and because he allegedly threatened another university employee.

Maldonado, former president of the Association of Classified Employees at YSU and a former university payroll assistant, also recently was indicted on 10 counts of theft, two counts each of falsification and theft in office and one count each of tampering with records and grand theft.

Those charges say Maldonado, 42, of Euclid Boulevard, falsified information to allow his nephew to attend YSU and receive more than $30,000 worth of free tuition he wasn’t entitled to between 2003 and 2009.

“Although it has been acknowledged by the [university] that in his comments of March 10, 2009, Mr. Maldonado did not in any way physically threaten his co-worker, the City of Youngstown Prosecutor’s Office continues to pursue misdemeanor menacing charges against Mr. Maldonado over those comments,” the filing says.

On Feb. 25, the attorney for the union, Ira Mirkin of Green, Haines and Sgambati, asked the university for six types of information in a public-records request.

The university turned over 477 pages worth of material but said some of requests were overly broad or ambiguous. The university said some of the documents are “work product” and “trial preparation” and qualify as exceptions to the Ohio Public Records Act.