YOUNGSTOWN — An attorney for former Mahoning County Sebring Area Court judge Diane Vettori-Caraballo says the decision of a visiting judge in April ordering Vettori-Caraballo to pay about $185,000 should be reversed to correct two errors.

Attorney John Juhasz filed the document in the appeal of the Mahoning County Probate Court case overseen by visiting Judge Thomas Swift. That case preceded Vettori-Caraballo being sentenced in June to more than two years in prison for stealing $100,000 from a deceased client’s estate. The Ohio Supreme Court assigned Swift to hear the case.

The judge ruled that Vettori-Caraballo, 50, of Youngstown, “willfully concealed” from the Mahoning County Probate Court assets she embezzled from client Dolores Falgiani and her brother, Robert Sampson, after Falgiani’s death.

The appeal says Swift, former Trumbull County Probate Court judge, erred in awarding $12,059.78 in pre-judgment interest in the case. Pre-judgment interest is money awarded to the prevailing party in a lawsuit as compensation for loss of the use of money from the time it is determined at trial to be due, to the time final judgment is entered.

The filing says pre-judgment interest should not have been awarded because the complaint filed by attorney Doug Neuman, who represented Falgiani’s estate, never asked for it.

Second, the appeal argues that a type of communication called ex-parte between the judge and Neuman took place, which is not allowed.

Ex-parte communication is from a one-sided or partisan point of view.

In this case, the filing says Neuman gave the visiting judge a request to approve a settlement involving some of the parties. It also alleges the judge “reviewed and revised the settlement proposal” without notifying all of the parties.

The filing says Neuman stated in his request to the judge for payment of his legal fees that the judge received, reviewed and revised the settlement proposal.

“The fact that it was offered to him, without all of the parties being notified, was an ex-parte communication,” the filing says.

Attempts to reach Swift by telephone Monday were unsuccessful.

The Youngstown-based 7th District Court of Appeals is hearing the appeal.

erunyan@tribtoday.com