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Trumbull prosecutor to appeal judge’s drug-treatment decision for ex-paralegal
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
An assistant Trumbull County prosecutor has called a judge’s decision to grant treatment in lieu of conviction for a former Warren Law Department paralegal “offensive.”
On Wednesday, Jason Burns, 33, of Aquadale Drive in Boardman, pleaded guilty in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to heroin possession, but Judge W. Wyatt McKay said he would hold Burns’ sentencing in abeyance while Burns undergoes a drug-treatment program.
Under the program, if Burns is able to stay clean for about a year, his charge will be dismissed.
“I’m hopeful you will be successful, but if you are not successful, you will be in trouble in this case,” Judge McKay told Burns.
Mike Burnett, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said afterward he intends to appeal Judge McKay’s decision to allow Burns to enter the program because of Burns’ previous criminal history and his former position of authority with the law department.
Burns was charged after a Warren police officer was called to the law department at 1:21 p.m. Dec. 23 because Burns was behaving strangely. His pants were wet, and he was mumbling.
Burns later handed an officer a sock containing several illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.
Burnett filed an objection to Burns’ request to enter the program in July, saying Burns was convicted in 2002 of a misdemeanor carrying-concealed-weapons offense in Boardman, was charged in 2008 with misdemeanor grand theft and burglary in San Francisco and allowed to enter a diversion program, and charged in Beaver Township in 2012 with misdemeanor drug paraphernalia, later reduced to disorderly conduct.
Burnett argued that the prosecutor in the case must agree to treatment-in-lieu for it to be used.
Burnett said that allowing Burns to avoid a conviction “would ... foster resentment in the community based on the fact that someone who worked for the system didn’t receive any punishment, while countless others have gone to prison for committing the same offenses.”
Judge McKay, meanwhile, wrote in a judgment entry that his reading of the law does not require the prosecutor to recommend the treatment-in-lieu, that Burns’ diversion program in San Francisco did not include a treatment component and Burns’ work at the law department did not give him a “position of trust in the community.”
Burns already completed inpatient and outpatient treatment at Glenbeigh and has demonstrated that he can comply with the conditions of the treatment-in-lieu program, Judge McKay wrote.