YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains confirmed Thursday that his office decided against filing charges against former New Middletown police Chief Vince D’Egidio.

The decision was made last fall, after reviewing an investigation by the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

The investigation began after New Middletown Mayor Harry Kale wrote a letter in November 2019 to Sheriff Jerry Greene stating that D’Egidio looked at pornographic websites. Sexual images were found on a work computer, Kale stated.

Greene said last year the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force became involved in the investigation because “the age of the person in the video with the chief” was not known. Greene said task force investigators “determined the individual was not a minor, was an adult.”

He said detectives with his office looked into the age of the person and his office is “satisfied” that no minor was involved.

BCI became involved because of its connection to the human trafficking task force, said Major Jeff Allen of the sheriff’s office.

The task force is a joint operation of the sheriff’s office and other area law enforcement agencies.

“There’s no evidence he committed a felony,” Gains said Thursday of D’Egidio. The investigation showed D’Egidio “had sexual images of an adult on his computer. Where’s the crime?”

As for misdemeanors, that would go through the Struthers Municipal Court, Gains said. “I don’t know if they pursued that or not. I think it would depend on what New Middletown’s regulations are with use of a computer.”

Gains said there was a meeting at the sheriff’s office last fall, possibly September, where the evidence was discussed. Gains she he doesn’t remember how investigators determined the age of the person in the image and doesn’t have a file on the case.

“We all decided there were no criminal charges to be filed,” Gains said. “I sat down with them, spent maybe an hour and a half, two hours going through everything they did, all of the scenarios.”

He said there was discussion of the misdemeanor offense of misuse of a computer. “But I don’t even know if it amounts to a crime,” he said.

Last July when The Vindicator asked Gains for an update on the D’Egidio investigation, he said a review of the Ohio BCI investigation was taking longer than normal because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a voluminous file, and we are still reviewing it,” Gains said at the time.

Also at that time, Steve Irwin, BCI spokesman, said the D’Egidio investigation had been turned over to the prosecutor’s office.

D’Egidio resigned in early November 2019 amid the investigation by the sheriff’s office.

John Zomoida Jr., Struthers law director, said he was not aware that the county prosecutor decided against any charges against D’Egidio and no one ever brought any investigative information to him for review.

erunyan@tribtoday.com