Friday, October 24, 2014
BURGHILL
The suspect arrested in the bomb scare at the Betras law office Oct. 16 will appear in court in Canfield this morning.
Mahoning County sheriff’s deputies arrested Charles J. Reighard, 67, of state Route 7, at 9:48 a.m. Thursday at his residence.
Reighard faces charges of extortion, retaliation, aggravated menacing and inducing panic. He is in the county jail, but will appear at 9 a.m. in Mahoning County Area Court in Canfield.
Deputies arrested the former client of attorney David Betras as they executed a search warrant at Reighard’s residence, where they found pipe, the same color of wick found in the unexploded device at the Betras law firm, and unsent drafts of letters in the wastebasket from him to Betras.
The search warrant was issued by Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
Maj. Jeff Allen of the sheriff’s department said Reighard sent three typed threatening letters to Betras this year, including one after the Oct. 16 incident, saying, “The next one will be at your house with your family home.”
“The letters got progressively more aggressive,” Betras said.
Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, arrived Oct. 16 to find a broken window on the second story of his law office, Betras, Kopp & Harshman LLC, on Seville Drive.
A nonexplosive pipe bomb was found outside the broken window.
Betras said the recent threatening letters were typed on Ohio Democratic Party letterhead and warned him against making political speeches.
“I called the ODP, and I told them to quit sending mail because I wouldn’t be able to open it anymore” for security reasons, Betras said.
Betras said he turned over to police the last threatening letter on ODP letterhead, which he received this week.
Betras added he has a restraining order against Reighard, which he obtained in exchange for dismissal of a menacing charge he had filed against Reighard in Canfield court in 2012.
Betras said he represented Reighard when he was charged in 1999 with vandalism for wrecking cars at the end of the General Motors assembly line in Lordstown. He was fired from his job there, and Betras said Reighard was angry at him because he blamed Betras for his dismissal.
In that case, he was sentenced to five years’ probation in September 2000, but that probation was terminated in April 2003.
Betras said he initially suspected Reighard on the morning of the bomb scare.
Betras commended the sheriff’s department and Boardman police, who put the Betras family under surveillance between the bomb scare and Reighard’s arrest.
“He has a long history of wanting to get back at people,” Allen said, adding that Reighard was charged in the past with threatening Jim Graham, former president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, and attorney Mark Colucci.
Judge David A. D’Apolito granted the prosecution’s request to dismiss the 2009 telephone harassment case in Mahoning County Area Court in Austintown involving Graham because the prosecutor believed Reighard suffered from mental disabilities and that pursuing the case could harm Reighard and might not serve the public’s best interest.