Vigorito trial set for November

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Visiting Judge Thomas J. Pokorny will hear the trial of Anthony Vigorito beginning at 10 a.m. Nov. 14.

The date was set at a pretrial hearing Wednesday morning in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Vigorito, 41, of Niles, is accused of falsifying training certificates for 26 employees of the Youngstown Water Department while he was chief engineer for the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District.

The MVSD demoted Vigorito in January after he failed for more than 18 months to obtain a Class 4 water engineer’s license needed for the job.

At that time, the district created the position of plant operations manager and selected Vigorito for the job.

Sanitary district officials have since eliminated that position.

A Mahoning County grand jury indicted Vigorito in March on six felonies including forgery and tampering with records.

Vigorito pleaded innocent to those charges.

Martin F. White, an attorney representing Vigorito, told Judge Pokorny he is 90 percent sure his client will waive his right to a trial by jury in favor of a bench trial in which the judge will hear the evidence.

Judge Pokorny asked to be notified of that decision 30 days before the trial date.

Attorneys for both parties expect the trial to take about three days.

In addition to the trial date, a final pretrial hearing is set to take place over the phone at 10 a.m. Nov. 3.