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Niles worker convicted of $97,000 church theft remains on city payroll
By Ed Runyan
NILES
Michael Marrara, who pleaded guilty last week to stealing $97,000 from Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Niles when he was maintenance supervisor there from 2007 to 2014, remains on the job as a Niles sewer-maintenance worker.
Marrara, 59, of Sayers Avenue in Niles, worked Monday through Wednesday while city officials discussed his status.
Niles Service Director Neil Buccino said he spoke with J. Terrence Dull, Niles law director, early Monday on what course he should take.
Dull said Tuesday he is still researching the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees contract covering Marrara, but it appears that the typical union steps involved in termination are likely to be involved if the city decides to fire him.
Dull said it will be up to officials such as Mayor Ralph Infante to decide whether to terminate Marrara, and the contract calls for Marrara to have a couple of levels of appeal if disciplinary action is taken.
Infante has not returned phone calls to the mayor’s office this week.
After a new pastor at Mount Carmel discovered that Marrara was using his church-issued credit card to buy personal items in early 2014, the pastor and a parish committee reviewed bills dating back to 2007 and uncovered many fraudulent charges.
Among them were $2,838 for campground sites in Portage County; $9,974 for tuition at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, for his daughter; $9,783 at Sears; $10,702 at a gas station; $15,103 in charges to the telephone company Sprint; and $7,541 for Time Warner cable services.
In October 2014, Infante said he had negotiated a change in the contract language for city workers, including Marrara, so that it would be easier to fire any city employee who was convicted of a felony. Infante said the language would become official as soon as the union ratified it.
Marrara’s conviction on grand theft is a fourth-degree felony, punishable by up to 18 months in prison. He also could get probation. Chris Becker, an assistant Trumbull County prosecutor, said he will ask Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to order Marrara to pay back the stolen money.
Becker said he didn’t know whether Marrara had the ability to pay.
Marrara will learn his punishment from Judge McKay at his sentencing in about four weeks.
At Infante’s urging, Niles City Council passed an ordinance in December 2014 allowing the city to suspend any employee without pay who is either indicted or charged with a felony.
The legislation’s purpose was “to maintain the confidence of the public in city government operations” and that the mayor “has recommended that legislation be enacted to empower the city to suspend any employee that is indicted or charged with a felony or certain other acts, with or without pay, pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings against the employee.”
The measure could not, however, be applied retroactively to Marrara, officials said.
Infante, who lost his re-election bid in the 2015 Democratic primary, said his only options at the time Marrara was charged with the Mount Carmel thefts were to place him on paid leave or let him keep working.
He kept Marrara working because he didn’t believe in paying someone to stay home, Infante said. While on the job, Marrara was to have no access to city funds, Infante said.