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Ex-Cafaro aide gets 10 days in jail; ex-Trumbull official’s criminal records sealed
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Jonathan M. Wike Jr. was ordered to pay back his former employer, state Sen. Capri Cafaro, the $75,000 he stole from her. He agreed to pay $300 per month starting in January.
Wike, 30, was district director of Cafaro’s Warren district office in 2015 when the thefts were discovered.
But Judge Ronald Rice of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court also wanted to know what Wike would do to repay his grandmother the $13,331 he stole from her. His grandmother, 89, told the court before the hearing she didn’t want Wike to repay her.
“I struggle with that every day, sir,” Wike replied. “I’m grateful for her forgiveness.”
When Judge Rice said again he wanted to know how Wike would “make it right” with his grandmother, Wike stammered and said, “Your honor, I can work to pay her back. I try to be as respectful as I can and hope for her forgiveness, sir.”
Judge Rice ordered that Wike serve five years’ probation, including 10 days in the Trumbull County jail; get an alcohol and/or drug assessment; and submit to random drug testing. He will not be allowed to work at any job that puts him in contact with a company’s money. Wike could get three years in prison if he violates probation.
Judge Rice said the 10 days in jail is “for what the court thinks of what you did to your grandmother.” Wike was led away in handcuffs a short time later to immediately serve the 10 days.
The judge said he hoped Wike would be a “stand-up guy and pay back what you stole from her.”
Wike, of Stepney Street, Niles, pleaded guilty earlier to grand theft from Cafaro and attempted theft from an elderly person.
Cafaro fired him in July 2015 for taking money from a personal account Cafaro established to pay operations of the Warren office. The money he stole was not public money. Cafaro hired Wike in 2008, and he worked out of an office on Courthouse Square.
Also in Judge Rice’s court Thursday was Tom Mahoney, who was fired from his job as Trumbull County Job and Family Services director in 2009 after buying drugs from a temporary JFS employee.
Mahoney was in court seeking to have records related to his 2009 conviction for cocaine possession sealed, which the judge approved.
Mahoney, 63, now of Bluffton, S.C., earned $107,344 annually as JFS director. The temporary worker, Kenneth Greep of Vienna, wore a recording device that captured conversations between Mahoney and Greep in which Mahoney admitted he’d bought drugs from Greep.
Mahoney’s attorney, Robert Shaker, said Mahoney’s request should be approved because Mahoney had “paid his debt to society” and is “gainfully employed in South Carolina.”
Mahoney apologized “to all of the people who depended on me, all of the ... staff and others that trusted me, that worked hard for me. I let them all down.”