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Former Youngstown police officer jailed
By JUSTIN DENNIS
YOUNGSTOWN
A former Youngstown police officer was jailed for theft Saturday.
Peter J. Luchansky, 63, of 7085 Steeplechase Drive, Canfield, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor count of petty theft. He was accused in June of drinking beverages he did not pay for inside the walk-in cooler at Marc’s grocery store along Mahoning Avenue in Austintown, as well as stealing two 1-dozen cartons of eggs from the store. The offenses were caught on the store’s surveillance footage.
A Mahoning County judge ordered Luchansky to spend 180 days in jail, with all but three days suspended, and pay $220 in fines and court costs. Court records show Luchansky was ordered to report to the jail Friday for the three-day sentence. County jail inmate records show he was booked Saturday.
Luchansky was fired from the Youngstown Police Department in 1983 after stealing two bags of shrimp from a grocery store.
In 2015, Luchansky was sentenced to more than three years in prison for defrauding a North Canton medical practice out of nearly $2.5 million.
Luchansky, an information technology manager at the practice, used two companies he had formed to bill the practice for services they did not provide. By October of that year, he had made more than $2 million in restitution by forfeiting cash, jewelry, two cars, a motorcycle and several dozen firearms.