Mahoning prosecutors vying for top job both promise ‘integrity’

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct that Paul Gains worked as a full-time patrolman for the city of Youngstown.]

YOUNGSTOWN — Both candidates seeking the role of Mahoning County's top lawman have worked to root out corruption in the county.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains, the longtime Democratic incumbent, first took office in the mid-1990s and revealed a countywide case-fixing scandal involving the sitting county prosecutor.

"I would think [voters] want integrity — somebody who does not mislead them or manipulate facts for their own personal or professional gain," Gains told Mahoning Matters. "Obviously, I believe they want experience. Everybody wants an experienced lawyer. I don't think anybody wants to hire an inexperienced lawyer. And, of course, a prosecutor who's going to follow the law."

Gains' Republican challenger Marty Desmond, a former Mahoning County prosecutor, said he believes he has prosecuted more criminal cases involving gangs and racketeering than any other assistant county prosecutor.

He said he's running for prosecutor to fill the void of leadership he sees in the office.

"The biggest problem we have in Mahoning County — this transcends the criminal justice system — is the absolute unwillingness to change," Desmond told Mahoning Matters. "We have been doing things in this county the same way for 30, 40, 50 years. It's the same thing again and again. Why can't we dig ourselves out from this hole?"

Paul Gains

Gains has held the office for 23 years. The Ursuline graduate earned his bachelor's degree in law enforcement administration from Youngstown State University in 1976 and his law degree from the University of Akron in 1982, while working as a full-time patrolman with Youngstown Police Department.

Gains, 69, of Boardman, told Mahoning Matters he's seeking his seventh consecutive term because he "enjoys" the work and his teams of criminal and civil attorneys are working well and racking up accomplishments.

"I've got a staff of criminal lawyers who are doing a tremendous job, despite what some in the community might think. I've reached a point where these lawyers want to stay here. They're happy here. … You don't hear police officers complaining about them," he said. "I had people asking me to stay. They know I can retire. … These people have said, 'please don't leave' because they love the staff that I have."

If granted another term, Gains said he would integrate a digital case management system installed last year which allows prosecutors and police to upload reports and evidentiary files, making them more readily available to prosecuting and defense attorneys. He expects the system to expedite court proceedings.

Gains said he would also support specialized docket programs like mental health and drug courts and theft diversion, as a rise in drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and crime is an expected consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Gains said he feels he made his biggest mark on the office by bringing back "integrity."

"My predecessor was fixing cases. Because of that, I believe that Youngstown experienced an extremely high homicide rate," he said.

In 1995, the year Gains said he decided to challenge former Mahoning prosecutor James Philomena, there were 68 homicides in Youngstown. When Gains ran for office the following year, there were 62 homicides in Youngstown — Gains said he was almost the 63rd.

Gains was shot and nearly killed soon after he was first elected, on what court testimony later confirmed was a mob contract. Philomena later admitted to accepting mobster bribes in a case-fixing scheme. More than 70 people were imprisoned for their involvement, including public officials and local authorities.

Gains, in a December interview with Mahoning Matters, credited himself with taking down the "for sale sign" outside the Mahoning County Courthouse.

Mahoning courts this year sentenced former Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone, the city's finance director David Bozanich, downtown developer Dominic Marchionda and local businessman Raymond Briya in a massive public corruption case revealed in 2018. All pleaded but corruption charges and prison time only stuck for Bozanich, despite special prosecutors' recommendations. The others were placed on probation and/or fined.

At least 90 percent of federal and state cases end in plea arrangements, according to 2005 statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. Judges are required to approve those agreements.

"Plea bargaining is a necessary evil. Everyone knows it exists," Gains said. "All of these people who have been prosecuted like Marchionda and Bozanich — I'm the one who brought in the special prosecutors."

When asked how the prosecutor's office can help the area shed its outward appearance as a bed of corruption — "Crimetown U.S.A." is the title of Allan R. May's 2013 book on Valley crime — Gains referred to what he tells those prosecutors: "I don't care who it is. Just follow the evidence and follow the law. And that is what happened. Those people are duly prosecuted.

"That's why I believe I'm doing my part to get rid of this perception that Mahoning County is such a bad area."

The rate of Mahoning County criminal defendants who pleaded guilty to their initial charges in 2019 was between 53 and 57 percent, according to Gains, meaning the remaining cases ended in lesser charges. His Nov. 3 challenger, however, disputes the weight of that statistic.

Mahoning County convictions account for nearly 2 percent of all state prison commitments, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Before Gains joined the office, that was at 1.5 percent, he said.

That's in-line with Lake County, which accounts for 2 percent, and above the 0.5 percent reported from Delaware County; both of those counties have similar-sized populations. Lucas County, which has nearly twice the population of Mahoning, reported 2.5 percent. Cuyahoga reported the most at 11.4 percent.

On top of prosecuting all felony charges in the county courts, Gains' office also represents all Mahoning County boards and departments as well as trustee boards for the county's 14 townships at no cost — with the exception of Boardman Township, whose charter requires a law director to be hired. Gains said the township pays his office $75,000 annually for that service.

Before Gains took office, each hired their own attorneys to represent them. In the last eight years, the practice has saved about $4.75 million for entities in Mahoning County — more than the budget for Gains' department, he said.

During Gains' tenure, his office also oversaw the legal work to regionalize the county's 911 dispatching services through creation of a council of governments.

His office also handled legal work needed to allow the county to assume ownership of the former Youngstown Developmental Center, which was shuttered by the state in 2017 and is expected to reopen early next year as the Mahoning Valley Campus of Care.

"[The commissioners' board] never even considered going to a private law firm and that is such an extreme compliment to us," Gains said, adding the move saved the county at least $250,000 in legal fees.

The prosecutor's office has also, in the last seven years, litigated foreclosure on about 5,000 properties for the Mahoning County Land Bank, which works to remediate blighted properties and make them tax-productive again.

Turning to the immediacy of the COVID-19 pandemic — which is Ohioans' chief concern this general election season, according to the Your Voice Ohio media collaborative — Gains said his office hasn't been called to prosecute criminal charges resulting from the state's mask mandate, as all issues were resolved outside the courts. However, he said he suggested his office had the ability to file temporary injunctions, potentially shuttering non-compliant businesses — "that seemed to get everybody's attention," he said.

On racial equity and a fair criminal justice system — another major concern for voters statewide — Gains said he feels local law enforcement agencies are "very good at weeding out the bad cops" and that the county has so far been spared from major incidents of police misconduct and civil unrest seen elsewhere in the country.

Marty Desmond

Desmond, 46, of Poland, worked under Gains as an assistant Mahoning County prosecutor from 2004 to 2017, and has a total 18 years of experience in law enforcement.

Desmond earned an accounting degree from John Carroll University — and spent four years as an accountant for Dix and Eaton, one of the largest public relations firms in Ohio — and his law degree from the University of Akron in under three years.

Before becoming a licensed attorney in 2004, Desmond completed training to become an FBI special agent, though the bureau didn't allow him to graduate.

He's also taught criminal justice classes at Youngstown State University.

During his 13 years with the prosecutor's office, Desmond prosecuted more than 1,000 criminal defendants — and more gang and corruption cases than any other county prosecutor, he claims — and worked as lead prosecutor for the area's drug and violent crimes task forces. He also claims to be the only county attorney to prosecute a heroin organization in a wiretap case, which are most often prosecuted at the federal level.

Desmond during his interview with Mahoning Matters repeatedly expressed his nonconfidence in Gains' leadership.

"It is time for change and I have the experience and dedication necessary to restore integrity to the prosecutor's office and to move it forward as an advocate of justice for every resident," Desmond said in a survey submitted to Mahoning Matters. "I will bring the much-needed leadership to the prosecutor's office that has been missing for many years."

The year after Desmond began working as a county prosecutor, he focused in on a backlog of pending cases that had accrued. County commissioners approved his plan to put grant funding toward additional prosecutors, he said.

Reports show more than half of the pending Mahoning County court cases this year have passed the six-month speedy trial limit, he said.

Desmond said he also led an initiative to indict accused drug abusers alongside dealers, pushing prison sentences for dealers while diverting the abusers into help programs. The first-such case brought several dozen indictments, only about 15 of which were for suspected dealers. The courts balked, he said.

"'This is not how we do things in Mahoning County.' If I've heard that once, I've heard it a hundred times," Desmond said. "I kept saying, 'That's why Mahoning County doesn't change.'"

He said he was also first to push for manslaughter charges for suspected drug dealers whose drugs caused fatal overdoses. Though he said he got "a ton of pushback," the practice is now common in county courts across the state.

One of Desmond's top priorities if elected is to restructure the prosecutor's office, and offer more training for assistant prosecutors, to give each case "the individualized attention it needs.

"That's what I was able to do at the task force. There's no reason we can't translate that office-wide," he said. "Using that experience I gained by, really, running the prosecution for two task forces shows me what it takes to lead the criminal division."

According to the Ohio Supreme Court, 96 percent of defendants in 2004 pleaded guilty to their initial charges, Desmond claims. By 2019, that "guilty-as-charged" rate had sunk to 57 percent, while the number of dismissed cases each year has more than doubled. He also attributes that to Gains' management.

"More and more criminals are not being held accountable — that's outraging people," he said.

Gains, however, claims Desmond is using inaccurate statistics — no prosecutor's office has a 96 percent "guilty-as-charged" rate, he said. The state's high court considers any case which results in lesser amended charges as a plea bargain, he said.

As he did during his time as assistant prosecutor, Desmond said, if elected, he plans to make himself immediately available to local law enforcement.

"I feel every police officer I knew had my cell number. I got calls from officers I never met before — could be in the middle of the night. They knew they could call me," he said. "My number's going to ring directly to my phone, so there is never a situation where a police officer has a question and doesn't know who to ask."

On top of their public litigation, Desmond and Gains have a history of private litigation relating to Desmond's termination from the prosecutor's office in 2017, which is largely unresolved.

Desmond claims he was wrongfully terminated from the prosecutor's office for exposing misconduct including witness intimidation, and has disputed the firing in multiple court cases.

Though a state panel denied Desmond's initial claim for whistleblower status, that was reversed by an appellate court. Upon appeal by Gains' office, the Ohio Supreme Court in February declined to take up the case and sent it back to the lower courts.

A separate defamation suit Desmond filed in 2018 against the prosecutor's office is still winding its way through Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

The court earlier this year delayed the evidence discovery period until mid-December and laid out a filings schedule that would run the case into June of next year, according to court records.

In a political advert, Gains' campaign claimed Desmond was also fired by the FBI, using court testimony Desmond claims was taken out of context.

Desmond told Mahoning Matters he completed FBI special agent training in Quantico, Va., in 2000. But the night before he was set to graduate, the bureau rejected him, claiming he showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Desmond said those symptoms arose from a violent home invasion three years earlier, in which he was kidnapped.

Desmond fought the federal justice department and won. An appellate ruling in the case established a new, oft-used precedent for the rights of violent crime victims who are seeking federal employment, he said.

That case and Desmond's whistleblower ruling are "two significant cases protecting the integrity of our court system, of our legal system and protecting victims' rights," Desmond said. "I'm extremely proud of those — having taken on huge empires and winning shows a lot about me."

Though Desmond is running as a Republican, this year's April primary was the first time Desmond has requested a Republican ballot since 2006, according to Mahoning County voting records. In past primaries up to at least 2006, Desmond has requested Democratic ballots, and unaffiliated ballots in general elections. Desmond said, however, he typically votes Republican in every general election.

He said he maintained Democratic registration because, in early adulthood, county election officials told him Republicans in Mahoning County have "no options. … The only way to participate is to register as a Democrat."

His dad told him, "They're right."

Desmond said he rejects Democrats' federal platform — especially when it comes to defunding police departments.

"I will not support any party that believes in defunding the police," he said. "I just think the Democratic Party is not the Democratic Party it used to be. I think they are extreme left and I don't agree with their philosophy."

This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 3:52 AM with the headline "Mahoning prosecutors vying for top job both promise ‘integrity’."