YOUNGSTOWN — The long dispute between Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains and Martin Desmond, the former assistant prosecutor Gains fired in 2017, may be coming to a resolution.

Desmond has withdrawn the appeal of his firing he filed with the Ohio State Personnel Board of Review, Christine Dietsch, executive director of the State Employee Relations Board, told The Vindicator on Friday.

Through the appeal, Desmond sought to get back his job at the prosecutor’s office and to be compensated financially.

Neither Desmond nor Gains would discuss the reasons Friday for the SPBR case being terminated.

The withdrawal took place Tuesday night, before a hearing officer with the SPBR in Columbus was set to conduct a three-day hearing in the case starting Wednesday. It was supposed to be the continuation of a hearing that began in October but did not finish because of a question of whether certain testimony was barred by a federal order.

The withdrawal means that the hearings are canceled, Dietsch stated in an email.

A copy of the filing from Desmond states the withdrawal of his appeal is “with prejudice,” meaning Desmond cannot refile it at a later date. The withdrawal states that Desmond and the county prosecutor’s office will pay their own costs and legal fees.

WHAT’S THE ISSUE?

The Gains-Desmond dispute has been punctuated by allegations by Desmond that multiple assistant prosecutors under Gains have engaged in improper or illegal conduct, including improper solicitation of campaign contributions to Gains’ 2012 re-election campaign. Other allegations have pointed a finger at two defense attorneys.

It is not known whether Desmond’s withdrawal of his SPBR appeal means that Desmond’s lawsuit in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court against Gains will also be withdrawn. There are no filings in that case indicating that it has been withdrawn. Desmond also would not comment on the status of the civil case, which is being handled by a visiting judge.

The SPBR appeal and the civil suit deal with the same issue — whether Gains was justified in firing Desmond, or whether Gains fired Desmond for filing a complaint under the Ohio whistleblower’s statute over alleged misconduct by Dawn Cantalamessa. She is a former Mahoning County assistant prosecutor who now works in a similar role in Ashtabula County and is running for Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge.

Gains fired Desmond in April 2017, saying it was because Desmond violated office policy by discussing a matter involving a case handled by Cantalamessa with people outside the office, including a lawyer who filed the civil rights lawsuit against the county.

Desmond alleges Gains fired him for telling Gains that Cantalamessa had illegally filed charges of tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice against Kalilo Robinson, a witness in a murder case, allegedly to intimidate Robinson into testifying. The charges against Robinson were dismissed, but Robinson’s lawyer filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the issue. That suit later was dismissed.

HEARING WAS ON HOLD

On the second day of the SPBR hearing last Oct. 28, an issue arose involving evidence that Gains’ attorneys argued was off limits for testimony because of a federal judge’s order. The hearing officer, Administrative Law Judge Raymond Geis, suspended the proceedings and later ordered that they would resume this week.

At the time the SPBR hearing was suspended, Dan Kasaris, an assistant Ohio attorney general, was testifying about things Desmond told him.

Kasaris testified that his superiors assigned him in fall 2016 to investigate allegations against a local defense attorney. As part of that case, Kasaris met with Desmond, and Desmond told Kasaris he believed improprieties were taking place in the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s office, Kasaris testified.

Kasaris said some of Desmond’s allegations pertained to the 2012 Democratic Party primary election for Mahoning County prosecutor between Gains and attorney Jay Macejko.

Desmond told Kasaris the election was “the most corrupt in Mahoning County history,” Kasaris testified, according to a recording of the hours-long hearings obtained by The Vindicator.

2012 ELECTION

Also during Oct. 28 testimony, Gains said he met with Kasaris in the fall of 2016. Kasaris said Desmond told him about alleged misconduct by an assistant prosecutor involving the 2012 primary election and other issues.

“Mr. Desmond was opining to (Kasaris) this theory that were was this cabal of attorneys that I would not go after them or prosecute them, that I was protecting them and that if (Desmond) could get to” a specified local attorney, it “could break this thing wide open or something along those lines,” Gains testified.

Gains said the information from Kasaris made Gains believe he could no longer trust Desmond’s judgment.

“I couldn’t trust his judgment because it seemed he was seeing crimes that just didn’t exist, and that troubled me deeply,” Gains said, adding that in the 24 years Gains he has been prosecutor he had never fired an assistant prosecutor before Desmond.

Gains also testified that he found evidence that Desmond was communicating with the attorney for Robinson and that Desmond had talked with a woman from the attorney general’s office regarding what Desmond viewed to be improper or illegal conduct in the prosecutor’s office.

Gains also said he found that Cantalamessa’s actions in the Robinson case were proper.

Kasaris also testified about allegedly improper actions by another assistant prosecutor, but that triggered questions among the lawyers and Geis about whether the issue was off limits because of the order of a federal judge in a separate case.

The SPBR hearings were then suspended until the hearing officer could determine whether a federal court “gag order” prohibited the parties from discussing that matter. It had been re-set for three days this week.

The hearing officer concluded that there was no evidence provided to indicate that a federal court order prevented that topic from being discussed.

“The gag order is not in the record. To date, (Gains and his lawyers have) not filed an actual order by any court limiting this board’s proceedings,” Geis stated in a Jan. 4 entry.

erunyan@vindy.com