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Testimony supports engineer allegations
Photo
Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro
DeChristofaro’s secretary: I handled campaign tasks while on county time clock
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Jennifer Bindas, secretary to Trumbull County Engineer David DeChristofaro, testified Thursday that she did campaign-related tasks at work on county office equipment over the past year.
Her statements support allegations being investigated by the Ohio Ethics Commission and Ohio Attorney General’s office that DeChristofaro illegally used county resources, equipment and labor for political purposes.
DeChristofaro did not return a call Thursday afternoon seeking comment. David Rouan, DeChristofaro’s director of administration, said he had no comment.
The investigation began after Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins wrote in January that DeChristofaro’s actions “appear to indicate to me that various statutes of Ohio [law] may have been violated.”
Bindas began giving testimony at a deposition at the county engineer’s office last week. Continuing the questioning Thursday was Atty. Ashlie Case Sletvold of the Chandra Law Firm of Cleveland. The deposition was part of the civil suit the firm filed on behalf of Niles resident Vincent Davila Sr. that asks for DeChristofaro to be removed from office for misconduct.
Thursday’s testimony focused on a variety of documents Bindas brought with her — many of which had been stored on a computer “flash drive” she used at the engineer’s office.
They included spreadsheets Bindas used to track the payments DeChristofaro received from campaign supporters for tickets to a Columbus Day fundraising dinner and tickets to a DeChristofaro golf outing fundraiser.
Also included were mailings Bindas assembled and sometimes designed for DeChristofaro and Rouan, for the dinner and golf outing.
Over the course of a year working for DeChristofaro, Bindas said she spent a week or more on campaign-related tasks at the direction of DeChristofaro and Rouan and was never instructed to keep track of the hours she spent on the tasks.
Bindas agreed under questioning that for nearly every campaign-related task she did, DeChristofaro was the person who asked her to do it, and DeChristofaro had never asked her do the work at home or at lunchtime.
Bindas said she was never asked to keep track of the number of campaign-related invitations or thank-you’s she made for DeChristofaro using county equipment.
DeChristofaro went to Trumbull County Auditor Adrian Biviano in April 2011 and wrote a check for $139.83 to pay back the county for 262 letters sent to precinct committee people.
Bindas said she felt more like DeChristofaro’s “personal assistant” while handling many of the details for the golf outing at Tamer Win golf course in Bazetta Township, including attending the outing.
“I felt more like a personal assistant than a county employee,” Bindas said, adding that she began to question whether her work on campaign-related matters was proper as the months went on, but she didn’t at first because she’d never worked in government before, having recently spent three years in college studying photo journalism.