METRO DIGEST || Plane crash in East Liverpool

Plane crash

EAST LIVERPOOL

A plane crash near the Columbiana County Airport sent the pilot, the only occupant, to Allegheny General Hospital. The crash occurred around 6:30 p.m. Thursday, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol and other safety officials arrived on the scene, a patrol dispatcher said. No information was available about the pilot’s name or condition late Thursday.

Water pressure

Canfield

City residents may experience some fluctuations in water flow and pressure during July and August.

Contracts were awarded for routine maintenance of two water-storage tanks owned and operated by the city water department: the water tower off Hilltop Boulevard and the ground storage tank off Fairground Boulevard, according to a news release from Canfield city.

The Hilltop Boulevard tower will be out of service in July and the ground tank in August, causing some minor fluctuations in water pressure and flow. Residents shouldn’t experience any disruptions in service.

Appointments made

WARREN

Trumbull County commissioners have appointed Donald Guarino as interim director of the Trumbull County Child Support Enforcement Agency and Atty. John Gargano to serve as interim director of the county Department of Job and Family Services.

The positions became vacant when the former interim director of both offices, Diane Shamrock, retired.

Guarino is chief deputy of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, and Gargano has provided legal representation to the JFS department.

Inmate expected

WARREN

Prosecutors believe a 37-year-old man serving a federal prison sentence in Maryland will arrive in the Trumbull County Jail this weekend to make an initial court appearance Monday on charges that he killed a mother and daughter in their Liberty Township home Nov. 15, 2009.

Melvin L. Turner is scheduled for arraignment before Judge Peter Kontos on Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on two counts of aggravated murder and single counts of aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence and being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He’s accused of being the triggerman in the shooting deaths of Wilneice L. Green, 28, and her 13-year-old daughter, Ja-Brajasia, in their Northgate Drive home. Turner was arrested in Maryland shortly after the Liberty crimes and was sentenced to a four-year federal prison term for embezzling.

Five other people already have pleaded guilty to their role in the Liberty homicides.

Charges withdrawn

new castle, pa.

Sex-crime charges were withdrawn against a Neshannock Township man. Joseph Granata, 52, had been charged with a sexual assault on a 25-year-old woman in March 2010, Neshannock Township police said.

Granata denied assaulting the woman. The charges were withdrawn at his preliminary hearing Wednesday morning in Lawrence County Central Court.

Severance pay OK’d

youngstown

The city’s board of control approved a $1,727 severance payment to former patrolman Robert Joliff.

Joliff was fired in early June 2010 after an investigation into his role in the alleged beating of Willie Daniel, of High Street, who is paralyzed from the waist down. Joliff sought reinstatement, but an arbiter upheld the dismissal last May.

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