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Caregiver pleads innocent in bad-checks case
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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David J. Venerose Jr., 40, of Sheridan Road, right, appears for arraignment on felony charges of passing bad checks and perjury. With him is his lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram. They appeared Wednesday before Magistrate Dominic DeLaurentis of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
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David J. Venerose, Jr.
YOUNGSTOWN
A man charged with bouncing rent checks for a bar he once operated and testifying untruthfully about the disposition of an elderly woman’s assets pleaded innocent at his arraignment.
David J. Venerose Jr., 40, of Sheridan Road, entered his plea to one count of passing bad checks and three counts of perjury.
His lawyer, J. Gerald Ingram, asked Magistrate Dominic DeLaurentis of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court to set bond at $10,000, with 10 percent acceptable.
“He is not a risk of flight, nor is he a danger to the community,” Ingram said Wednesday, adding that Venerose appeared for arraignment as scheduled.
Jennifer McLaughlin, an assistant county prosecutor, said she did not object to that bond.
DeLaurentis set bond at that level, and Ingram immediately posted the $1,000 cash bond on Venerose’s behalf in the clerk of court’s office.
Venerose then self-reported to the Mahoning County jail for processing as authorized by the magistrate. Venerose’s case is assigned to Judge Lou A. D’Apolito.
Venerose and Ingram declined to comment after the arraignment.
Venerose was indicted by the county grand jury Jan. 6 on allegations of passing $8,600 worth of bad rent checks for the Iron Shamrock bar he used to operate in Boardman.
The grand jury also indicted him on three perjury counts that allege he lied under oath in a probate-court guardianship hearing concerning the disposition of an 89-year-old former Boardman woman’s assets.
A visiting probate judge ordered Venerose to pay $67,560 in legal fees and restitution over 16 years to that woman’s guardianship estate in a settlement of a concealment-of-assets complaint.
In another matter, Duniek Christian, 26, of North Garland Avenue, entered his innocent plea without incident to a charge of failure to comply with a police order when he appeared before DeLaurentis.
The charge, for which he was indicted Jan. 6, stems from a Nov. 10 police pursuit in which Christian was apprehended. DeLaurentis continued Christian’s $50,000 bond.
Appearing with Atty. David Gerchak, Christian exhibited none of the disruptive behavior for which Judge Elizabeth Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court found him in contempt of court Jan. 7.
Judge Kobly sentenced Christian to 30 days in jail for each time she said he was disorderly or disrespectful to the court when he appeared before her on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business and a traffic charge.
By the time Judge Kobly ordered him to be removed from her court, Christian had been sentenced to 230 days in jail for contempt.
Judge Kobly also ordered that Christian not return to her court until his mouth was duct-taped shut.
An American Civil Liberties Union spokesman said he would prefer that Christian appear by video from jail if he won’t behave in court.
Christian awaits retrial on felonious-assault charges stemming from a 2005 rolling gunbattle with police on the city’s East Side after a jury deadlocked in that case.
The new failure-to-comply charge was assigned to Judge James C. Evans, who will preside over the retrial of the 2005 case.