WARREN — The former superintendent of Liberty Local Schools has until Thursday to take a plea deal from prosecutors in the felony case involving the wiretapping of a school district office.

Joseph Nohra, 51, of Topper Hill Drive, Hubbard, was in court last week for a pretrial hearing before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Ronald J. Rice. Rice is scheduled to preside over a bench trial Feb. 8 to decide six felony wiretapping charges and five misdemeanor counts of interfering with civil rights against Nohra.

Assistant Prosecutor Charles Morrow told the judge he has offered Nohra one of three options to settle the case:

• No contest plea to six counts of interfering with civil rights, a first-degree misdemeanor;

• No contest plea to six counts of possession of criminal tools, another first-degree misdemeanor; or

• Guilty plea to one count of dereliction of duty, a second-degree misdemeanor.

None of these charges carry any prison time, but defense attorney David Betras said his client will need some time to determine “licensure issues.”

Nohra resigned as superintendent in 2020, prior to the charges being filed.

Felony charges were dismissed by Rice on Dec. 30, 2021. The 11th District Court of Appeals last September, however, reversed that decision — sending the case back to common pleas court.

Rice gave the defense team until Thursday to take Morrow’s offer or go to trial.

Morrow said he has about 10 witnesses lined up to testify against Nohra, but Rice said he doesn’t want to spend much time listening to testimony about background.

“Since there will be no jury, we will have to cut to the chase,” Rice said — promising a short trial.

The charges deal with Nohra, when he was superintendent, setting up a hidden surveillance camera and audio above an employee’s desk in the district office in the bus garage.

The allegations came from an investigation initiated by the state auditor’s office that was executed through a search warrant by local authorities at Liberty schools on March 5, 2019.

Betras has previously explained Nohra at the time was presented with credible evidence that a school employee may have been involved in theft in office. Nohra, with the knowledge and approval of the school board and its legal counsel, initiated his own investigation that resulted in that employee’s resignation, Betras stated.

“It is unbelievable that someone is stealing from the school system and my client is charged with a crime,” Betras said. “We will fight this thing to the bitter end.”

Morrow said prosecutors are pursuing the case on constitutional grounds, defending the public’s right of privacy. He also stated the facts of the case are still in dispute.

In his earlier dismissal decision, Rice stated the court “finds that there is lack of guidance as to what constitutes an oral communication in this regard and that such lack of guidance leads to the arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of this statute.”

In the decision to reverse Rice’s decision, former 11th District Judge Thomas Wright wrote on Sept. 6 that “any attempt to challenge the constitutionality of (state law’s definition of oral communication) is premature.”