The MVSD plant operations manager faces 6 felonies for allegedly falsifying training certificates of Youngstown water workers
YOUNGSTOWN
A 41-year-old man accused of falsifying the training certificates of Youngstown Water Department employees faces six felony charges.
A Mahoning County grand jury on Thursday indicted Anthony Vigorito, of Isaac Avenue, Niles, the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District’s plant operations manager, on two counts each of forgery, criminal noncompliance with the state’s safe drinking water law and tampering with records.
Vigorito declined to comment to The Vindicator. Martin White, his attorney, couldn’t be reached by the newspaper to comment.
Vigorito offered continuing-education courses for water operators on behalf of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.
He is accused of falsifying the training certificates of Youngstown employees, in 2013 and 2014, by claiming they had taken the courses, when, in fact, they never took or completed the classes as required, according to the state attorney general’s office.
On Feb. 27, 25 Youngstown Water Department employees and a former city water department worker pleaded guilty in Franklin County Municipal Court to falsifying their contact hours.
They all agreed to pay $2,000 in restitution to the city, plus a $1,000 fine and a $250 court administrative fee. Some workers agreed to perform 50 hours of community service, while others opted to pay an additional $1,000 fine instead.
The agreements also stipulate they will tell the truth about the case if subpoenaed by a court in any related cases.
The agreements specifically state workers “must cooperate with authorities in the prosecution of Anthony Vigorito.”
Their Class 2 certifications were suspended for a year, but as long as they follow the terms of an agreement they signed in court, the convictions will be dismissed.
Twenty-four of the 25 who still work for the city had their salaries reduced. Twenty of the 24 who lost salary had a two-step job classification drop. That’s an annual pay cut of $4,243 to $4,472. The other four, including three supervisors, had one-step job drops and lost about $1,900 in annual salary.
They can seek the certification after a year, and if they receive it, they’ll have their salaries restored to the level they were before the reduction.
During last month’s court hearing, Charles Dunlap, the attorney for 25 of the 26 defendants, said Vigorito let the workers leave early from the training and they weren’t aware it was an issue.
Vigorito’s case was referred to the attorney general’s Environmental Enforcement Section by the Ohio EPA.
Robert Cheugh, principal assistant attorney general with that section, was appointed as a special prosecutor by the Mahoning County prosecutor to handle the case against Vigorito.
The two forgery counts accuse Vigorito on or about May 4 and 5, 2013, and on or about Sept. 18 and 20, 2014, of facilitating a fraud by forging written documents showing the Youngstown workers completed a two-day certification course to renew their operators’ certificates when they didn’t.
The two counts of criminal noncompliance with the state’s safe drinking water law accuse Vigorito on those same dates in 2013 and 2014 of “unlawfully and knowingly [making] a false material statement or representation in a record or other document” to the Ohio EPA director in violation of that law, according to the indictment.
The two counts of tampering with records say Vigorito falsified the records on those same dates in 2013 and 2014 and submitted them to the EPA, which are kept by or belong to that state entity.