METRO DIGEST || Canfield man indicted

Man indicted

YOUNGSTOWN

A 63-year-old Canfield man has been indicted on one count of making interstate threatening communications, directed at U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson of Poland, R-6th.

James Shuba is accused of making a telephone call in late June from Ohio to the District of Columbia and, upon reaching an employee of Congress, stated in part: “Bill Johnson is a [expletive] and I hate him. I wanna kill him. He wants to end Social Security and Medicare. I hope he dies. He should be dead,” according to the indictment.

The indictment was announced Tuesday by Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

O’Brien’s future

WARREN

Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien, who has served as mayor, Trumbull County commissioner, Warren council member and corrections officer in the past 33 years, won’t be a government worker come Jan. 1.

O’Brien will be taking two months off to start 2012, he said Wednesday. After that, his future is up in the air.

O’Brien, 56, has talked with employers in the private sector but also isn’t ruling out the possibility that he’ll take another position in government — either elected or appointed, he said.

He chose not to run for re-election as Warren’s mayor. His safety-service director, Doug Franklin, was elected in the Democratic primary and didn’t have an opponent in the general election.

“I’ve got a lot of opportunities, but I haven’t decided yet,” O’Brien said.

Sentencing set

CLEVELAND

Kevin L. Harris of Warren, who pleaded guilty to engineering a $20 million Ponzi scheme, will be sentenced at 10 a.m. Jan. 26 in Courtroom 16B in Federal Court in Cleveland.

His sentencing has been delayed on several occasions because of Harris’ firing his previous defense attorney and because of victim- impact statements that were not available earlier.

Harris, 46, pleaded guilty a year ago to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Most of his victims were from the Toronto, Canada, area.

New YMCA director

WARREN

Rich Denamen of Austintown is the new director of the Trumbull County YMCA.

Denamen was the superintendent of the Austintown school district for 11 years and spent the last six years as superintendent of the Educational Service Center for the Mahoning County Board of Education before retiring. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in administration from Youngstown State University, is married and has two sons and three grandchildren.

Juveniles robbed

Girard

A pair of masked robbers held up two juveniles Tuesday night as the victims were leaving a friend’s house, police said.

The juveniles, both 17, told police they were leaving a friend’s house at 106 E. Second St. when two masked men jumped from the bushes.

One of the men, holding a gun, ordered the victims to lie down on the ground and asked them what they had, according to a police report.

The victims told the robbers they had nothing, but the masked men ripped two necklaces from one of the victims’ neck, police said.

One of the necklaces is 16 inches and the other 18 inches. One of the necklaces had a medium-sized gold cross attached to it.

Police have suspects but as of Wednesday, no arrests had been made, police said.