43
Ex-Warren cop indicted by grand jury
By Joe Gorman
WARREN
A Warren police officer fired earlier this month for having a car towed illegally while he was on duty last June was indicted by a Trumbull County grand jury Friday.
Reuben Shaw, 48, faces felony charges of grand theft, theft in office and breaking and entering and misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty and falsification.
The grand-theft charge is a fourth-degree felony, and the other two felonies are fifth-degree.
The case has been assigned to Common Pleas Court Judge Peter Kontos.
Shaw had been on paid administrative leave since July before being fired earlier this month by Chief Eric Merkel on six administrative counts in the towing of a 1969 Chevrolet Nova from a vacant 2320 Kenwood Drive SW home to a garage Shaw had control over without permission from the vehicle’s owner.
Shaw is appealing his firing.
According to the indictment, Shaw is charged with grand theft because he took the car without any consent from its owner and that he broke into a garage to do so. He faces a theft in office charge because the indictment says he committed those crimes while he was acting in his official job as a Warren police officer.
As for the misdemeanors, the indictment says Shaw “did recklessly fail” to perform the duties for which he was hired and that he gave a false statement about the incident July 1, the day after the car was taken.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the police department’s Internal Affairs Division investigated the case while Shaw was on leave. They gave the results to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins in March.
In the investigation, Shaw was found to have been called to the Kenwood Drive Southwest home for a call about trespassers. He returned later in the day with another person who was not a police officer and got inside the locked, detached garage. That investigation also noted that Shaw told other officers he wanted that car.