Ex-commissioner home from prison

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Former Trumbull County Commissioner James Tsagaris

Staff report

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.

James Tsagaris, the former Trumbull County commissioner convicted of honest-services mail fraud last year and sentenced to federal prison, returned to his Howland home Thursday, his son, James Tsagaris Jr., said.

“He’s home, and everything’s fine,” Tsagaris’ son said Thursday afternoon by telephone. He said the former commissioner was not available to talk.

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, 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 that Tsagaris’ crime 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.