Plea deal cancels trial for Polivka

Staff report

WARREN

Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka avoided a domestic- violence trial scheduled for Monday in Warren Municipal Court by pleading guilty to a lesser offense Friday.

Polivka, 46, of Country Club Drive, pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, was found guilty and was fined $250.

Had he been convicted of the original charge, he could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail.

Polivka, who also was elected Trumbull County Democratic Party chairman last month by the party’s central committee, was charged with domestic violence by Howland police in August after an altercation with his estranged wife, JoAnn, at Old Avalon Golf Course.

JoAnn Polivka was golfing with a man at the time. She told police Polivka drove a golf cart into the side of her golf cart, screamed at her, threw the golf clubs belonging to her companion “onto the course,” grabbed her with both hands by the neck, struck her on the cheek, told her she would never see her daughter again, took her cell phone and drove away.

The commissioner was arrested a short time later at the nearby Howland branch of the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library.

Visiting Judge Jerry Hayes of Portage County was assigned by the Ohio Supreme Court to preside over the case after Warren Municipal Court’s two judges asked that the case be reassigned.

Elected in 2004 as county commissioner, Dan Polivka is serving his second term. He served as Warren’s 5th Ward councilman from 1983 to 1987 and councilman at-large from 1988 to 2004.

JoAnn Polivka filed for divorce from Dan Polivka on May 6, 2009. They were married in 1997. A final hearing on the divorce was Monday, but officials said the case had not been finalized as of midweek