Friday, December 25, 2015
Staff report
WARREN
The 11th District Court of Appeals has upheld a decision by a judge granting treatment in lieu of conviction for a former paralegal assistant to Warren Law Director Greg Hicks who came to work under the influence and in possession of drugs.
Jason Burns, 34, of Aquadale Drive, Boardman, pleaded guilty in 2014 to heroin possession, and Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court granted him treatment and abeyance of his conviction and sentence while Burns underwent that drug treatment.
If Burns is successful in the program, he will not have a conviction.
But the county prosecutor’s office argued Burns did not deserve a nonconviction option because of his previous criminal history and the position of authority he had with the Warren Law Department.
It also argued that the prosecutor in the case must agree to treatment in lieu of conviction, which the prosecutor did not do.
Burns was charged after a Warren police officer was called to the law department at 1:21 p.m. Dec. 23, 2013, because Burns was behaving strangely. His pants were wet, and he was mumbling, police said. Burns later handed an officer a sock containing several illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia, police said.