YOUNGSTOWN — On June 6, Youngstown police asked for help identifying suspects in a May 17 East Side shooting.

That same weekend, Raymond Butler was fatally shot while driving near downtown Youngstown. In these cases and many more, police look to the public for leads in the investigation.

One of the best tools they have at their disposal isn’t inside the police department.

“Crime Stoppers gives us a mechanism for police to get tips from individuals who want to stay anonymous, who want to help but don’t want to put themselves in danger,” said Det. Inspector Jim Ciotti of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office. “It took me 22 years to realize that nobody really likes the police, but there are still times when we have those who want to get the information to us to try to help out.”

Crime Stoppers, above all, runs an anonymous tip line 330-746-2583, or 330-746-CLUE to allow residents of the Mahoning Valley to provide information about murders, drug activity or other crimes. If their tip leads to an arrest or an advancement in the investigation, they may receive a reward of as much as $5,000 and sometimes more.

Ciotti said the hotline has been known to help.

But Crime Stoppers has been largely dormant in recent years, still providing the phone line for tips but not engaging by and large with the community.

John Leseganich, the new president of the local chapter, said he wants to put a new face on the organization and become much more active. Crime Stoppers began in the late 1970s in Albuquerque, New Mexico and now operates worldwide.

The first step was obtaining a new headquarters. On Thursday, Mahoning County Commissioners unanimously approved a motion to lease office space to Crime Stoppers in Oak Hill Renaissance Center for two years, for $1 a year.

“We’re very happy to have Crime Stoppers as a tenant in our building,” said Commissioner Anthony Traficanti. “They’ve been around for a very long time, and they provide confidential information on serious cases, between the public and law enforcement, and they help solve serious crimes.”

Leseganich, who was appointed president in January, said the new space will be used for administrative offices and to provide a home base for the executive board, which up until now worked remotely all using their own personal phones and emails addresses to conduct the organization’s business.

“This new fixed location will allow us to have a proper email address, an administrative phone number, and it will be a location for any executive board member to come in and handle any business they need to,” he said. “We’d like to have it staffed on certain days of the week and allow the community to stop in, see what’s going on, get involved.”

The old brick-and-mortar location for Crime Stoppers was at the Youngstown Police Station and, like Ciotti, Leseganich saw the problem with that.

“They don’t want to call police because there’s no anonymity to that,” he said. “We are not law enforcement. Our cornerstone is the anonymity of the tipsters. That’s the strength of the Crime Stoppers.”

HOW IT WORKS

When a person calls in a tip to the hotline, which is operated by the county’s Help Hotline, they are not asked for their name or phone number or address, or even asked how they know the information they are providing.

Instead, Leseganich said, they are given a code. With that code, they can call and check in on the case. If the information they provide leads to an advance in the case or an arrest, they can provide the code and Crime Stoppers will arrange for them to receive their reward money through a participating bank.

Ciotti notes that there are new problems with the reward system, given that banks are less inclined to just hand money to people with no identification required other than a code on a piece of paper. Leseganich did not say if this new physical location will somehow alleviate that problem.

What he did say, however, is that he intends to roll out a new enhanced reward plan.

“If you see a poster on the street, advertising a reward by a crime victim’s family or someone else interested in the case, what we will do is call and ask them if we can add that money to the reward we give out, in the event that someone provides a tip that solves the case,” he said.

In some instances, for very high profile cases, or cases where police feel a great deal of urgency to get credible information quickly, the board will meet and approve a motion to increase the Crime Stoppers reward to $10,000.

Leseganich said the Oak Hill Space provides a conference room where the board can meet more easily, instead of trying to schedule space in another county agency’s building, like the Sheriff’s Office or YPD.

“We used to have to seek out places for board meetings. Now we have that so everybody will know that every third Wednesday of the month at 10 a.m., we’re there,” he said.

“They said you can use this any time you want.” And Leseganich intends to. “I’ve got plans for conferences and symposiums, talking about community concerns like gun violence and street crimes, and so on.”

Leseganich said the space also provides room for him to record Crime Stoppers podcasts, talking about active investigations and solved cases with local law enforcement officers.

POLICE APPRECIATION

Police say the hotline is a valuable tool, but it also comes with its drawbacks.

“There’s a lot of tips that are not credible or don’t have any veracity or value to a case,” Ciotti said, “but even if you get one tip a month that is really good, then that is beneficial. And it’s worth it.”

Police have to check out every tip that comes in, to see if it leads anywhere. Many tips do not.

But many are worth their weight in gold.

Ciotti recalled a local case in which a Crime Stoppers caller notified police that a homicide suspect had fled to Florida, providing them with the exact address. That call came in at 6 p.m. and by 10 p.m. U.S. Marshals in Florida had the man in handcuffs.

In the shooting death of 15-year-old Amya Monserrat at Martha’s Boulevard Tavern on Youngstown’s South Side, in April 2023, Ciotti said many tips came in shortly after the shooting.

Youngstown police Capt. Jason Simon led that investigation but could not be reached for comment, so it is unclear if or how the tips contributed to the arrest of Saun Peterson who pleaded guilty to the murder in November 2023.

Ciotti is MCSO’s liaison to Crime Stoppers.

Detective Sgt. Mike Banic does the same job for Hubbard Police Department. Banic said he hopes Crime Stoppers might help him solve an ongoing case from 10 years ago.

Cody Pitts was at a local bar on Main Street in March 2015, on the very cold night of March 6. At about 3 a.m. on March 7, a woman delivering newspapers called to report a man face down on nearby Orchard Street. Pitts had been fatally shot.

“The Trumbull County Homicide Task Force and our department did a good job of

collecting information from witnesses that night,” Banic said. “And I have been able to cultivate more information since then. And we do have a suspect, but we also have a burden of proof to meet. I’m just trying to find the evidence that will lead me to the one fact that will satisfy the standards of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and secure a conviction.

Banic said that through working with the FBI Youngstown field office, a shell casing found at the scene was processed at the laboratory in Quantico, Virginia.

“They analyzed the casing for tool markings, and matched it to a group of firearms that fit those characteristics, and out of that list was the Walther P-22 handgun.

That is the call he hopes to receive, either through Crime Stoppers or a direct call to his office. He said the serial number on the gun is L-404221.

Banic said it is not just about the tips. Crime Stoppers helps keep the heat on, too.

“They want to do weekly cases to bring attention to them, and that is also a big help,” he said. “If I’ve committed a crime, the more time that goes by, the safer I feel, especially if it’s quiet. But if these cases are constantly put out there in the media, that puts more pressure on them.

As a police officer, I don’t want this person to be able to relax, I want them to spend their life worried the police are gonna catch them. That pressure, it can’t be good for their mental health.”

And Banic said the organization is another way to bring police together across jurisdictions.

“I’m looking forward to working with them and helping them with anything they’re doing even if it’s not Hubbard’s case, whatever helps solve somebody’s case, I’ll do,” he said.

Leseganich said he intends to publicize more cases and facilitate more collaboration. Crime Stoppers Mahoning Valley has expanded to cover the whole Interstate 11 corridor from Columbiana County up to Ashtabula County.

In addition to Banic and Ciotti, Leseganich said Detective Sgt. Sharon Cole of Youngstown police, who took over the liaison role from Simon, and more liaison officers from local departments will soon be added.

But he said the foundation of the hotline and its effectiveness is the everyday citizen, who Leseganich compared to masked superheroes like Batman or the Green Lantern.

“I want to promote the area and change things for the good, and the only thing that can change the area is people,” he said. “You can fight crime, solve cases, make money, walk around proud and we won’t even know who you are.”