YOUNGSTOWN — Developer Dominic Marchionda, two of his companies, and former city Finance Director David Bozanich have asked a judge to dismiss Youngstown’s $834,608 civil lawsuit against them because the city failed to timely serve them with the complaint.

Douglas Ross — attorney for Marchionda, U.S. Campus Suites LLC and Erie Terminal Place LLC — wrote that a Nov. 25, 2024, attempt by the Mahoning County clerk of court to send summons and the complaint by certified mail to his clients and Bozanich were unsuccessful.

The city’s attorneys didn’t file a request until Dec. 2, 2025, for the clerk of courts to send the information to the defendants by regular mail.

Because the lawsuit was filed Nov. 11, 2024, more than a year passed before the defendants received the summons and complaint, which violates Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure and should result in the case being dismissed, Ross wrote.

Timothy Cunning, Bozanich’s attorney, filed a similar request for visiting Judge W. Wyatt McKay, a retired Trumbull County Common Pleas Court judge, to dismiss the case for the same reason.

Youngstown Law Director Adam Buente said: “The city is reviewing the motions filed by defendants and determining the appropriate course of action in response.”

Service of process issues have been a problem since Michael P. Ciccone took over in January 2025 as clerk of courts. The county Democratic and Republican parties are seeking to have Ciccone removed through a court action, accusing him of using “discriminatory and degrading language,” and failing to “perform core statutory duties.”

McKay set the trial date for Nov. 9.

McKay will have to rule on the dismissal motions filed by the defendants.

Ross wrote in his filing: “Because plaintiff did not serve defendants within one year of filing the complaint, the dismissal of the complaint is appropriate under (court rules). Further, at this juncture, the court lacks jurisdiction to enter judgment against defendants. Any judgments entered by this court would be a nullity and void.”

While the summons and complaint weren’t delivered to defendants in the required one-year time frame, Bozanich, Marchionda and the two companies had filed responses, counterclaims and motions in the civil lawsuit.

Ross addressed that by writing: “The Ohio Supreme Court holds that when the affirmative defense of insufficiency of service of process is properly raised and preserved, a party’s active participation in the litigation of a case does not constitute waiver of defense.”

Cunning also requested that the intervention status in the case granted by McKay to Hartford Fire Insurance Co., Bozanich’s bonding company when he was city finance director, also be dismissed.

Hartford paid $100,000 to the city as partial payment of the lawsuit against Bozanich and is seeking to get that money back from the former finance director. McKay on Oct. 14 dismissed Bozanich’s counterclaim against Hartford that it shouldn’t have paid the city.

The city filed the civil lawsuit Nov. 21, 2024, against the two men and two companies seeking to recoup $834,608 it claimed was improperly taken in a “calculated scheme.”

CRIMINAL CASE

Before seeking the dismissal for failure to timely serve the case, attorneys for Marchionda and his two companies as well as Bozanich 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.

Bozanich pleaded guilty on Aug. 7, 2020, 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.

On the same day, 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. As part of the deal, charges against Erie Terminal Place LLC were dropped.

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 extensively reported on it.

The lawsuit states the fire station purchase “was a calculated scheme, facilitated by U.S. Campus Suites and orchestrated by Dominic Marchionda and David 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 wasn’t convicted of any crime related to the fire station transaction, and got to keep the remaining $200,000.

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, Gregg Rossi, the initial attorney for Marchionda and the two companies, wrote in a Jan. 2, 2025, filing that more than that amount was used for water and wastewater work related to the student-housing project.

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

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.