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Perjury charge against Craig Beach councilwoman, ex-chief dismissed
YOUNGSTOWN
A perjury charge against a Craig Beach village councilwoman and a former police chief of that village has been dismissed.
The dismissal came after prosecutors said last week that they couldn’t prove that the lie the councilwoman and former chief allegedly told was important to the outcome of the disciplinary hearing that preceded council’s vote to fire the chief.
Judge James C. Evans of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court dismissed the criminal charge at the request of Paul J. Gains, county prosecutor, and Rebecca Doherty, chief of the criminal division in Gains’ office.
The charge alleged the councilwoman, Wanda S. Sabol, 46, of Warchester Avenue, Lake Milton, and the former police chief, Joseph E. Borosky, 33, of Nottingham Avenue, Austintown, lied under oath in Borosky’s August 2012 disciplinary hearing when they said a dash-cam video of a traffic stop made by Borosky contained sound, when it did not.
“It is the undersigned’s belief that, even if the statements allegedly made by these defendants were false, the State of Ohio cannot prove that the statements were material to the outcome of the disciplinary hearing, which is an essential element of the charge of perjury,” Gains and Doherty wrote in their motion for dismissal.
“Inasmuch as Mr. Borosky was disciplined due to his charging a citizen with resisting arrest where there was no underlying charge, whether or not there was audio is certainly not material to the alleged violation of Craig Beach Village’s policy involving police officers,” Gains and Doherty explained.
Because of time constraints, the grand jury, which indicted Sabol and Borosky on the perjury charge, reviewed only a partial transcript of the disciplinary hearing, the prosecutors said in their motion for dismissal.
The video of the traffic stop showed Borosky pulling a woman from her car and handcuffing her on Grandview Road in 2011.
In the disciplinary hearing, Borosky claimed the dialogue on the recording would have vindicated him in connection with a complaint concerning the traffic stop.