YOUNGSTOWN — A judge set a Nov. 9, 2026, trial date for Youngstown’s $834,608 civil lawsuit against developer Dominic Marchionda, two of his companies, and ex-city finance director David Bozanich.

During a Thursday pretrial hearing, visiting Judge W. Wyatt McKay scheduled the trial to start 15 months from now.

McKay is overseeing this case after all Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judges recused themselves. Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Sharon L. Kennedy appointed McKay, a 36-year Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge who retired in 2022, to the case on Jan. 21.

The city filed the civil lawsuit Nov. 21 against Bozanich, Marchionda, U.S. Campus Suites and Erie Terminal Place LLC seeking to recoup money. Marchionda, Bozanich and U.S. Campus Suites LLC all pleaded guilty to felonies after taking deals on reduced charges on Aug. 7, 2020. Charges against Erie Terminal Place were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

Attorneys for Marchionda and his two companies as well as Bozanich have responded in court documents that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it is past the statute of limitation and barred by a previous plea bargain agreement, among other issues.

Gregg Rossi, the lawyer for Marchionda and the two companies, filed a Jan. 2 motion asking the court to grant summary judgment in favor of his clients — which would dismiss the lawsuit — and filed a counterclaim that raised the possibility of the return of $1 million paid by his clients to the city.

Rossi has argued a number of times that summary judgment should be granted because a plea agreement with his clients prohibits the city’s lawsuit.

Rossi wrote in a May 22 motion that the issues raised in the city’s lawsuit were included in annual state audit reports in 2012, 2013 and 2014 — and chose to do nothing about it for years and thus exceeding the six-year statute of limitations.

In an April 28 response in opposition to the summary judgment request, Hilary DeSaussure of the Akron law firm of Brennan, Manna & Diamond LLC, which is representing the city, wrote the six-year statute of limitations for the city’s claims did not begin until the state auditor filed a 2021 report containing findings for recovery, which included findings of illegal expenditure and misappropriation.

McKay hasn’t ruled on the summary judgment motion and counterclaim.

The city received $100,000 from Hartford Fire Insurance Co., Bozanich’s bonding company when he was finance director, as partial payment of the $614,608 it is seeking specifically related to funding given at Bozanich’s behest to Marchionda to develop the Flats at Wick, a student-housing complex.

The $100,000 from Hartford would be deducted from the amount the city is seeking though the company filed a motion to intervene in this case on Jan. 17 seeking to get that money from Bozanich.

McKay ruled Thursday that Hartford could intervene in the case and that no party objected to the company’s request.

Bozanich pleaded guilty to one count each of bribery and tampering with records, both felonies, and two misdemeanor counts of unlawful compensation of a public official. Bozanich spent nearly a year in a state prison for his crimes.

Marchionda pleaded guilty to four felony counts of tampering with records, all occurring on Oct. 6, 2011, admitting he used false invoices to get money from the city for his Erie Terminal Place downtown-housing project to pay bills he owed for the Flats at Wick.

U.S. Campus Suites LLC pleaded guilty to a felony count of receiving stolen property for illegally obtaining money from the city.

Bozanich’s tampering with records conviction was for him giving $1.2 million from the city’s water and wastewater funds, divided evenly, to Marchionda if he gave $1 million of it to the city’s general fund in December 2009 to buy the property for a Madison Avenue fire station, which was subsequently closed. That transaction allowed Bozanich to balance the city’s general fund that year.

The state auditor began its investigation into the transaction after The Vindicator reported on it.

The lawsuit states the fire station purchase “was a calculated scheme, facilitated by U.S. Campus Suites and orchestrated by Marchionda and Bozanich to illegally transfer money from the city’s water fund and wastewater fund to the city’s general fund in violation of” state law.

Marchionda, who wasn’t convicted of any crime related to the fire station transaction, got to keep the extra $200,000 from the city grant.

The city also paid $3,220 in closing costs.

The appraised value of the fire station at the time was $411,388, according to the lawsuit.

As for the $200,000 from the original $1.2 million grant, Rossi wrote in a Jan. 2 filing that more than that amount was used for water and wastewater work related to the student-housing project.

The fire station, Rossi wrote, was deemed as surplus property by the city “with no value and no use” so the monetary recovery claim “is unfounded.”

If U.S. Campus Suites LLC is liable for the value of the fire station, Rossi wrote the fair market value is zero. The county auditor puts its value at $46,000 for property tax purposes.

If it’s determined that the lawsuit is not barred by the statute of limitations, Rossi wrote U.S. Campus Suites LLC seeks the $1 million “in grant money improperly received by the city of Youngstown as a result of the transaction.”

The lawsuit seeks a total of $614,608 from the two men and two companies: $411,388 for the fire station purchase, $3,220 for the closing costs, $100,000 from the wastewater grant and $100,000 from the water grant.

The city is seeking $220,000 from Marchionda and Erie Terminal Place LLC — $110,000 each for water and wastewater grants given to that project that Marchionda pleaded guilty to creating false invoices.

In addition to the $834,608, the city is seeking costs and interest on the money, and for Bozanich to “forfeit and disgorge any and all compensation he received from the city during the relevant time period pursuant to the faithless servant doctrine in an amount to be determined at trial.”

Bozanich was city finance director from Nov. 15, 1993, to Dec. 31, 2017.