Lawyer will investigate allegation of job offer before primary election

The common pleas court must now approve Wilson’s appointment.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners approved the hiring of Atty. Thomas Wilson to assist the county elections board in processing an election complaint made against David DeChristofaro, the Democratic Party nominee for county engineer.

Wilson, of Warren, has a law office in Youngstown. The commissioners authorized Wilson to make $150 per hour for work on the complaint filed by two Hartford men and their Cleveland attorney against DeChristofaro, over allegations of offering a job to Niles Mayor Ralph Infante before the March primary election.

The commissioners, along with Prosecutor Dennis Watkins, will now apply to the county common pleas court, asking the court to appoint Wilson to the case.

Watkins decided last week to ask for an outside lawyer to handle the complaint.

The prosecutor’s office has assisted the elections board with election-related complaints in the past, but Atty. Subodh Chandra of Cleveland charged that the prosecutor’s office had a conflict of interest in handling the matter and should ask for assistance because of Watkins’ familiarity with DeChristofaro.

DeChristofaro and Watkins are to appear on the ballot this November on the Democratic ticket. Neither one has an opponent in the election so far.

Chandra, representing Richard Ponder and Michael W. Anthony, has written to the prosecutor’s office and board of elections, charging that DeChristofaro told a newspaper reporter he had offered a job to Infante — a move Chandra said could qualify as bribery and could result in DeChristofaro’s being disqualified from the election.