Ex-commissioner Tsagaris gets out of prison today

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.

James Tsagaris, the former Trumbull County commissioner convicted of honest services mail fraud last year and sentenced to federal prison, was going to be released from prison here sometime Thursday, a prison spokesman said.

The public information officer at the prison said he could not provide any details regarding the time of day Tsagaris would be released or whether he had already been released on Thursday morning.

A federal judge in Akron sentenced Tsagaris to nine months in prison after he failed to abide by the provisions of his probation.

Tsagaris, 76, of Howland, began his prison term Dec. 18, 2009.

Tsagaris took a $36,551 loan that he never repaid from a local businessman in late 2004 while he was a commissioner without reporting it on state financial-disclosure forms in 2005 and 2006; he then voted on matters related to that businessman, federal prosecutors said.

Federal officials refused to identify the businessman, though a federal prosecutor said earlier this year, the Tsagaris’ case was related to a similar one committed in summer 2006 by Maureen Cronin, a former Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge, who took a $18,000 no-interest cash loan from Flora Cafaro, part owner of the Cafaro Co.