Former probate court employee dies

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Services will take place at 3 p.m. today in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Basilica Church for Donald D. Gaudio Jr., 54, of Boardman, a former Mahoning County Probate Court deputy clerk and guardianship investigator, who died Monday at the Cleveland Clinic after a brief illness.

Gaudio joined the probate court Dec. 8, 2008, and was fired by then-Judge Mark Belinky on July 14, 2011.

Gaudio was fired after being accused of threatening to punch a Boardman businessman in the face June 15 of that year in the county courthouse rotunda.

Although a sheriff’s department report was filed on that incident, Gaudio was never charged criminally in connection with it.

Gaudio was fired for “engaging in unacceptable behavior toward a member of the general public on June 15, 2011,” Lucia Lovell, court administrator, wrote to state Job and Family Services officials in response to Gaudio’s unemployment insurance compensation claim, which the state denied.

In an appeal of the state’s denial, Gaudio wrote on a JFS appeal form that he believed he was fired because Judge Belinky was under FBI investigation and knew that Gaudio had been questioned by the FBI.

Belinky got two years’ probation after he pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations concerning his 2008 judicial campaign.

As part of his probation, Belinky got 60 days of house arrest and 200 hours of community service and was fined $2,500.

As part of his guilty plea to tampering with records, Belinky had to resign from the bench, surrender his law license and withdraw from the Democratic Party.

Most recently, Gaudio was one of 14 people on the witness list of Martin Yavorcik, who was a defendant in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case this year in Cleveland, but Gaudio was never called to testify in Yavorcik’s trial.

Yavorcik got five years’ probation, with the first year under house arrest, after a jury convicted him of one count each of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy and tampering with records, two counts of money laundering and three counts of bribery.

The law license of Yavorcik, an unsuccessful candidate for county prosecutor in 2008, was indefinitely suspended May 2 by the Ohio Supreme Court.

“I was deeply saddened to hear about Donnie’s death; and his family, his daughters and his parents are in my thoughts and prayers,” Lovell said.

Friends may call from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. today at the Fox Funeral Home in Boardman.