Sheriff confident no deputy wrong-doing in latest jail hanging

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office is conducting an administrative review — but not an internal affairs investigation — into Sunday morning’s suicide by a jail inmate because it’s clear that the supervising deputy in this case performed his job properly, Sheriff Jerry Greene said this morning.

The inmate, Colin Anzevino, 21, of Struthers, who had pleaded guilty to an aggravated burglary charge with a firearm specification, was found unresponsive in his cell at 12:27 a.m. Sunday after having last been checked on at 11:56 p.m. Saturday, said Maj. Alki Santamas of MCSO.

“We are 100 percent confident that our deputy did what he was supposed to do,” which was to make two rounds an hour at intermittent intervals to check on inmates under his supervision, the sheriff said.

“There were no indicating factors to tell anybody that [the hanging] was going to take place,” in the Anzevino case, the sheriff said.

The prosecution was recommending eight years in prison for Anzevino upon his sentencing, which had been scheduled for Oct. 30 before Judge Shirley J. Christian.

This past weekend’s suicide follows the suicide of Kevin P. Burkey, 50, of Lowellville, who died by hanging in his Mahoning County jail cell on Aug. 25.

Burkey had been jailed on a charge of theft of dangerous drugs from St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

Two sheriff’s deputies were suspended for improperly leaving their posts for breaks when Burkey committed suicide.