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Warren law director said he ‘took a chance’ on worker with substance-abuse problem
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
City Law Director Greg Hicks said he was aware that 33-year-old former paralegal assistant Jason Burns, whom he hired in July 2012, had experienced substance-abuse issues in the past, but Hicks was willing to “take a chance on him.”
“He’d had some issues, some treatment. We took a chance on him. He was well-qualified, and he did extremely well until the relapse,” Hicks said Thursday.
On Dec. 23, 2013, Burns, who listed addresses on Perkinswood Boulevard Southeast in Warren and Aquadale Drive in Boardman, “acted strangely” at work, and Warren police found him to have illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia in his possession.
On Tuesday, police charged him with felony drug possession, and the case was bound over to a Trumbull County grand jury. If convicted, he could get a prison sentence.
Police were called to the law department next to city hall on Mahoning Avenue at 1:21 p.m. Dec. 23 by co-workers, who said Burns was acting strangely in his second-floor office.
Officers noticed Burns was untidy, with no shoes, and his pant legs were wet. He mumbled and slurred his speech, then stated he had taken a drug.
An officer preparing to drive him home in a police cruiser patted Burns down and found a hypodermic needle and dirty spoon, two crack pipes, a prescription bottle containing capsules and other items in a sock in his coat pocket.
The materials were sent for lab testing at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The results showed they contained OxyContin, a painkiller, and Alprazolam, a sedative, for which Burns had no prescription.
Hicks placed Burns on unpaid leave and has recommended that Burns be dismissed from the position, which paid $11.79 per hour to start and increased to $12.47 on July 18, 2013.
The paralegal assistant position involves performing computerized legal research to assist attorneys in the law department.
Burns started out in an unpaid position but was hired to the paid paralegal assistant job July 18, 2012, a few weeks before he was convicted of obstructing justice and about three months after he was convicted of disorderly conduct — both in Mahoning County.
Burns was convicted Aug. 1, 2012, in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown on obstructing justice stemming from charges filed by Austintown police that accused him of driving another man to an Austintown store, where the other man paid for items with a counterfeit $100 bill on Feb. 4, 2012.
Judge David D’Apolito placed Burns on a one-year probation and ordered to have a drug screen within in 30 days.
Burns also was convicted of disorderly conduct in Mahoning County Area Court in Canfield in May 2012 after Beaver Township police charged him with possessing drug-abuse instruments in March 2012.
A Beaver Township police officer made a traffic stop on a vehicle Burns was driving March 3, 2012, and found two syringes and an elastic underwear-band tourniquet in the car.
An entry in that court case said he was enrolled at an in-house substance-abuse treatment program at Glenbeigh in Rock Creek, Ashtabula County, while the case was being processed.