YOUNGSTOWN — It keeps getting worse for the owners of the stalled Chill-Can plant property now that a judge has ruled they must pay $733,481 in sanctions to Youngstown on top of the $1.5 million already owed to the city.

Also, Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ruled Friday against a request made by the company’s former attorneys that she disqualify Magistrate Dennis J. Sarisky from the case.

Getting the money from M.J. Joseph Development Corp., which owns the project’s property on the city’s lower East Side, isn’t going to be easy.

“I think this guy’s uncollectable,” Sarisky told The Vindicator a couple of weeks ago in reference to Mitchell Joseph, who owns M.J. Joseph and sister companies.

In Sweeney’s judgment entry, she wrote, “In considering and awarding sanctions, the court takes into account the fact that the history of this case includes multiple discovery failings by the plaintiffs and lack of legitimate excuses or mitigating factors surrounding plaintiffs’ repeated noncompliance and the number of failed opportunities this court provided the plaintiffs to correct their faulty behavior and the fact that plaintiffs’ behavior has resulted in substantial delays and expense to the city.”

Sweeney also upheld a July 20 decision by Sarisky, who determined M.J. Joseph should be sanctioned $733,481 — $414,948 the city spent on acquiring 15 properties bought for the project, which included relocation expenses, and $318,533 in demolition and abatement costs.

Sweeney on Nov. 21, 2022, upheld Sarisky’s Sept. 28, 2022, ruling that M.J. Joseph breached agreements it had with the city and Youngstown was entitled to the repayment of $1.5 million in water and wastewater grants. The money hasn’t been repaid.

Sweeney gave M.J. Joseph 30 days in a Feb. 8 order to get new lawyers after agreeing to let its former attorneys, Justin Markota and Brian Kopp, withdraw from the case.

Joseph has not hired new legal counsel and ignored court filings and decisions in a number of cases, including the city’s breach of contract lawsuit.

Notice of that order was sent to M.J. Joseph and a sister company, Joseph Manufacturing Co. Inc., at its listed address in Irvine, California, and returned March 8 because the property is vacant, according to a court document.

Efforts to reach Mitchell Joseph have been unsuccessful. The companies don’t exist on anything but paper.

The city and others — including MS Consultants Inc., an architectural firm that won a breach-of-contract ruling against M.J. Joseph — are trying to obtain the 21 acres in Youngstown the company owns through legal action.

Joseph, a former Youngstown resident, claimed he was going to develop the location into an $18.8 million business to produce the world’s only self-chilling beverage can.

Sweeney also ruled Friday that a Sept. 11 request Markota and Kopp made before being permitted to withdraw as M.J. Joseph’s attorneys to disqualify Sarisky from the case was “without merit and is therefore denied.”

Next in this case is a May 2 status hearing in front of Sarisky.

Sarisky recently said of M.J. Joseph, “I’m not going to continue everything. They’ve done everything to stretch out this case in my opinion. We’ll get his case done.”

The city filed a $2.8 million breach-of-contract lawsuit June 17, 2021, contending M.J. Joseph failed to live up to its promises to develop the site.

M.J.Joseph was required to construct four buildings and create 237 jobs by Aug. 31, 2021, according to an agreement it had with the city.

Three unfinished buildings are at the fenced-in, undeveloped site.

Knowing the city’s lawsuit was coming, M.J. Joseph and Joseph Manufacturing Co. Inc. filed a May 24, 2021, lawsuit against the city to stop it from reclaiming the $1.5 million in grants. That suit also contends the city doesn’t have any legal rights to money, property and buildings.

In a March 29, 2021, certified letter, the city informed Joseph he had 60 days to construct a number of buildings and hire about 150 workers or it would file a lawsuit. The city followed through June 17, 2021, with the lawsuit that was postponed because of the Joseph legal action.

In addition to the grant and the property and demolition / abatement costs, the city’s lawsuit contended it had lost at least $575,000 in income tax revenue from the project’s failure at the time of the court filing. That lawsuit said the “full amount of lost income tax revenue will be proven at trial,” but the city was losing about $18,333 a month. At that rate, the city would have lost about $600,000 in additional income tax revenue.

The 7th District Court of Appeals on Feb. 20 dismissed an appeal by M.J. Joseph on a breach-of-contract case filed by MS Consultants for nonpayment of $322,908 for design work on the idled project. Sweeney still has to rule on a motion in that case that Markota and Kopp had submitted asking her to reconsider her decision in favor of MS by default when the attorney missed a deadline.

MS also filed a foreclosure case in common pleas court — that was joined by the city and others — against the company. That case is in front of Magistrate Dominic DeLaurentis even though M.J. Joseph doesn’t have an attorney and hasn’t responded to any court correspondence.

A Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge ruled Nov. 29 that the companies and Joseph owed $2.58 million to Richard A. Briskey, a Sunbury businessman, in a breach-of-contract lawsuit. Briskey won the case by default when the companies and Joseph never responded to the lawsuit. Briskey is now a party in the foreclosure lawsuit.