9/18/03

He has agreed to repay Trumbull County $200,000.

By PEGGY SINKOVICH

and STEPHEN SIFF

VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF

WARREN -- The former mayor of Lyndhurst pleaded guilty this morning to one charge each of bribery and complicity to theft in office, in a continuing investigation into Trumbull County purchasing practices.

The charges are third-degree felonies. The investigation was prompted by a series of stories in The Vindicator last year.

Barry Jacobson appeared this morning before Judge Peter Kontos in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. He was accompanied by family members.

As part of the plea agreement, Jacobson agreed to give $200,000 back to Trumbull County and was to write an initial $30,000 check today.

Judge Kontos said that had Jacobson contested the charges, the prosecutor would have had to prove that the former mayor bribed a public official and that he conspired with a public official to take county property or money in excess of $5,000.

After the pleadings, county Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said Jacobson has agreed to testify before a grand jury that he paid Tony Delmont "tens of thousands of dollars" over the years.

Watkins also said Jacobson's company was selling supplies to the county at prices inflated as much as 500 percent. He cited a can of wasp spray for $73 as an example.

Delmont, who was making $71,081 a year as head of the county maintenance department, has not been at work since Feb. 24, when the county snowplow he was driving slid off the road. He has been receiving workers' compensation.

Delmont's accident occurred just days after a local grand jury began hearing evidence about maintenance department purchasing.

County commissioners stripped him of his purchasing authority last year. Under Delmont, the county maintenance department spent about $300,000 a year on cleaning and janitorial supplies for the county jail and administrative buildings.

Most of that money went to companies who did not have formal contracts with the county, and which never submitted a formal bid.

Delmont told The Vindicator he would select companies to buy from based simply on who walked in the door of his first-floor office.

Generally, state law requires contracts worth more than $15,000 a year to be awarded based on formal bids.

Inventory: After The Vindicator began reporting what was going on, Watkins asked commissioners to shift purchasing responsibility out of the department and to make only emergency purchases until an inventory could be performed.

The inventory found that there was little control over the system for purchasing supplies and that officials made no effort to find lower prices or make sure that items that were ordered actually arrived.

Purchasing decisions are now made by Tony Carson, the county's director of purchasing.

In the first three months after Delmont was stripped of his duties, the amount of money spent on supplies dropped from more than $5,000 a week to less than $1,000.

Jacobson and partner Brian Fox own Envirochemical Inc., which sold more than $923,000 worth of janitorial supplies to Trumbull County over six years.

The county cut off Envirochemical in September 2002 at Watkins' recommendation.

Envirochemical's catalog for $59 a case sold to Trumbull County for $120; spray cleaner listed in the catalog for $34 a case sold to Trumbull County for $90.

The supplies were never made available for competitive bidding, and officials in the county maintenance department made no bones about the fact they could have bought many supplies cheaper had they shopped around.

Other details: In June, Jacobson said he complied with a subpoena to provide Watkins with business records.

As well as running Envirochemical until June, Jacobson was mayor of Lyndhurst, a Cleveland suburb. He became mayor in 2001 when the previous mayor resigned.

In June Jacobson said he was leaving the mayor's post because he had sold his home and was planning to move out of town.

From August 2001 until August 2002, when The Vindicator began examining Trumbull County's purchasing procedures, the county spent in excess of $300,000 a year for janitorial supplies.

Those expenditures included such items as $8 a bottle for glass cleaner and $167 a case for toilet-bowl cleaner.

After The Vindicator series began, the county dumped all its maintenance department suppliers, switched to a state-run purchasing program and beefed up its purchasing department.

From January to now, the county has spent only $44,385 for the same kind of supplies, according to the county auditor's office.

The Vindicator series was awarded first place for investigative reporting for 2002 by The Associated Press of Ohio.

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Jacobson still has not been sentenced.

This story ran the day of the court hearing. We were not sure who would be arraigned that day, so  I had four advance stories ready. I called the editor from the courthouse to provide details and  tell him which to run.