Man gets 2 years in prison for cocaine trafficking

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

The man who helped authorities convict the former Trumbull County Department of Job and Family Services director on a cocaine-possession charge last year has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Kenneth Greep, 47, of Vienna, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to four counts of cocaine trafficking and will forfeit $2,200 in cash.

Chris Becker, an assistant county prosecutor, said prosecutors accepted a plea agreement for Greep that reduced his prison sentence because of his cooperation with investigators. Greep could have gotten as much as 20 years in prison.

Greep allowed investigators to wiretap the phone at his Pleasant Valley Road home in March 2009 and record several conversations between Greep and Tom Mahoney, his former boss at JFS, just after Greep was arrested on the drug charges.

In one conversation, Mahoney told Greep he would do everything possible to help Greep get his job at JFS back and recommended two attorneys. In a later conversation, Greep told Mahoney that investigators knew that Mahoney had been at Greep’s house.

“Hey, you didn’t tell anybody else you was buying coke off me, did you?” Greep asked Mahoney on one recording.

“No, why?” Mahoney said.

“I just wanted to know, that’s all,” Greep said.

Trumbull County commissioners fired Mahoney, a 26-year county employee who made $107,344 annually as the JFS director in March 2009, for buying drugs from Greep, lying to investigators and allowing Greep to work for the county despite knowing Greep was selling drugs.

After Greep’s hearing Wednesday, Becker said Mahoney knew Greep before Greep was hired in September 2008 to fill a temporary position in which Greep worked full time at $9.25 per hour, shredding JFS files.

Mahoney was sentenced to four years’ probation.