Warren auditor's brother enters no-contest plea

Staff report

WARREN

Dennis J. Griffing, a city operations department employee, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor theft charge for stealing 15 to 20 newspapers per day from Warren vending boxes.

Griffing entered his plea Thursday in Warren Municipal Court. He will be allowed to enter a diversion program and will be ordered to pay restitution.

If Griffing completes the requirements successfully, the charge will be dismissed, court officials said.

Griffing, brother of city Auditor David Griffing, admitted to an investigator with the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office that he was taking the newspapers daily for more than a year to share with his co-workers at the operations department.

The theft resulted in a loss of $100,000 in 2012, the Tribune-Chronicle newspaper estimated. The investigator caught Griffing, 52, of North Street NW, in the act by conducting surveillance on him as he left for work in April.