YSU player remains suspended

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

A Mahoning County judge has dismissed a Youngstown State University football player’s challenge to his suspension from the university through December, saying she lacks jurisdiction over the university disciplinary matter he brought before her.

In doing so Friday, Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of common pleas court also dissolved a temporary restraining order blocking the suspension of Lee Wright of Park Avenue, which she had issued July 28.

Wright had been suspended June 14, when a university hearing panel consisting of two faculty members and a student said he violated the student code of conduct.

The panel acted on the basis of the May 22 arrest of Wright, 21, and his fellow YSU football player, Casimier Mitchell, 19, of Cleveland, by a YSU police officer, who stopped the car they occupied after seeing it drive away from the sound of gunfire.

Both men got a probation sentence Aug. 22 from Judge Elizabeth Kobly of Youngstown Municipal Court, after Wright pleaded no contest to improperly handling a gun in a motor vehicle and forfeited the gun to campus police, and Mitchell pleaded no contest to discharging a gun within city limits and improperly handling a gun in a motor vehicle. The judge found them guilty.

Mitchell has been suspended from YSU for at least a year and lost his football scholarship.

Wright’s civil complaint before Judge Sweeney said Wright had lost a full athletic scholarship to YSU and was barred from attending fall semester classes there.

Both men had no prior criminal record.