YOUNGSTOWN — The 7th District Court of Appeals upheld a Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge’s decision requiring the city reinstate Brian Flynn, who was fired as a police lieutenant in December 2022 after being accused of dereliction of duty, with back pay and interest.

In a 3-0 decision, the court denied the city’s claims that Judge Maureen Sweeney erred in affirming the Dec. 26, 2024, binding decision by arbitrator Jerry B. Sellman that the city should have suspended Flynn for two weeks without pay rather than fire him and Sellman correctly interpreted the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that the officer’s union has with the city regarding levels of misconduct.

Sellman’s ruling called for Flynn, fired Dec. 2, 2022, to be reinstated to the Youngstown Police Department with no loss in seniority or benefits and with back pay, though that amount will be offset by compensation he’s received since then.

City Law Director Adam Buente said: “While we respect the decision of the court of appeals, our disagreement has always been with the arbitrator’s judgment. To reduce the discipline from termination to a slap on the wrist for misconduct this serious should outrage the public. Decisions like his are what cause citizens to lose faith in the legal system.”

Flynn was hired Sept. 26, 2023, as a full-time officer by the village of Poland, where he still works, and as a part-time officer in New Middletown. Flynn was hired Oct. 21, 2024, by New Middletown, but village records show he resigned April 22 rather than be terminated after the department launched an investigation into his conduct.

In its Friday decision, the court of appeals wrote Youngstown “argues on appeal that the arbitrator failed to determine whether Flynn’s actions constituted justifiable cause for termination of employment. This assertion is not supported by the record, however. The arbitrator expressly concluded that there was no just cause for termination.”

The decision reads the city “also argues that the arbitrator violated the collective bargaining agreement by failing to determine whether Flynn committed a serious offense such that termination, rather than progressive discipline, was appropriate. The CBA did not require the arbitrator to make an express determination of ‘serious offense.’ The parties stipulated to the questions that were put to the arbitrator for resolution and a determination of ‘serious offense’ was not one of them. Furthermore, the CBA does not require termination for serious offenses. The record reveals the arbitration award drew its essence from the CBA, and the award was not unlawful, arbitrary or capricious. Neither of appellant’s arguments are persuasive, the sole assignment of error is overruled, and the judgment of the trial court confirming the arbitration award is affirmed.”

The court decision states: “While a two-week suspension seems fairly lenient considering the infractions involved in this case, neither this court nor the trial court is permitted to substitute our judgment for the arbitrator’s in this matter. Whether we would have decided this case differently is not a question for this court. We may only reverse if the award has no nexus to the DBA.”

The city filed March 26, 2025, with common pleas court disputing Sellman’s Dec. 26, 2024, decision that it should have suspended Flynn for two weeks without pay “in light of certain mitigating circumstances and the employer’s progressive disciplinary procedures” rather than fire him.

In her Nov. 20 decision, Sweeney wrote: “The court finds that there is a rational nexus between the collective bargaining agreement and the arbitration award. The collective bargaining agreement requires the employer to have just cause to discipline an employee. The arbitrator determined that the employer did not have just cause to terminate Lt. Flynn and modified the termination to a two-week suspension.”

Sweeney added: “There is no limitation on the arbitrator’s authority to modify the discipline. Since the award draws its essence from the labor agreement and is not unlawful, arbitrary or capricious, the court hereby confirms the arbitration award.”

Kay Cremeans, an attorney with the Fraternal Order of Police, Ohio Labor Council, who represented Flynn in the appeal, said Monday of the decision: “I’m very pleased with it. The court made the correct decision. They understood the law that surrounds an appeal or a motion to vacate arbitration and applied it in this case.”

Cremeans said Flynn wants to return to the Youngstown police force.

“We’re hoping he comes back,” Cremeans said. “We’re waiting on a call from the city saying, ‘Come on back.'”

NEW MIDDLETOWN

Regarding his departure from New Middletown, Flynn signed a document on April 22 stating he’s “been given an opportunity to resign rather than to be terminated,” and the police department “has no intention of lodging a criminal complaint against Mr. Flynn.”

New Middletown Police Chief T.J. Dobbins wrote in a March 25 “allegation, inquiry and commendation report” that he was told by a motorist that an officer — who was Flynn — let an impaired driver leave the scene of a crash on Middletown Road a day earlier.

The report states a volunteer firefighter, who responded to the call, smelled alcohol on the driver’s breath, and Flynn acknowledged that.

The report states the volunteer firefighter heard Flynn tell the motorist he had a suspended driver’s license, and Flynn didn’t want to tow the vehicle as the driver wasn’t from around the area so he let him go.

A New Middletown Fire Department medic, who also responded to the call, wrote in a March 27 statement to Dobbins that the motorist was “slumped over the wheel of his vehicle.”

In her statement, the medic told Dobbins that Flynn told the driver that his Pennsylvania license was suspended, and asked if there was anyone who could pick him up. The man said no. Flynn told the motorist he could drive away if he immediately left Ohio, the medic wrote in a statement to Dobbins.

In her statement, the medic wrote that after Flynn shook the motorist’s hand, he told her that there was “nothing more he could do because he did not witness the (driver) having physical control of the vehicle.”

Dobbins wrote in his report that Flynn was suspended as of April 3, the day of the report and the same day he received the firefighter’s email about the incident.

Dobbins wrote: “Letting an impaired unlicensed driver operate a vehicle puts the public at extreme risk and also violates department’s enforcement and general conduct policies.”

Dobbins also wrote: “Flynn has displayed a pattern of conduct in neglecting his duties as a New Middletown police officer while on duty within the village. Spending most, if not, all shifts on station, pulling a rolling chair out of camera view for hours at a time, and failing to enforce village ordinances and (Ohio Revised Code) violations. Due to a pattern of behavior, it is my recommendation his employment be terminated by the village.”

WFMJ-TV 21 first had information about the New Middletown report.

FIRED

Youngstown filed an appeal Dec. 22 seeking to overturn Sweeney’s Nov. 20 decision in favor of Flynn. The city wanted the appeals court to remand the matter back to arbitration to consider whether Flynn’s conduct was serious enough to be fired.

The appeals court ruled Sweeney was correct to uphold Sellman’s ruling, writing in its Friday decision: “As a matter of policy, the law favors and encourages arbitration” so “accordingly, courts avoid disturbing an arbitrator award and have only limited authority to vacate an award.”

In his ruling, Sellman determined Flynn “did engage in conduct that constituted neglect of duty, conduct unbecoming, incompetence and violations of standards of conduct for supervisors, managers and administrators,” but the city shouldn’t have fired him.

Flynn was charged with 14 misdemeanor counts of dereliction of duty, but they all were dismissed.

Flynn was fired Dec. 2, 2022, after an investigation determined he failed to assign detectives to at least 40 referrals from the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force involving alleged child abuse and child pornography cases.

Flynn was the head of the Family Investigative Services Unit, now called the Special Victims Unit, and a Youngstown police officer since Aug. 31, 1998.

Before his firing, Flynn was on paid administrative leave for more than 20 months.

A criminal investigation was conducted by Detective Brian Breeden of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office at the request of Jeff Limbian, then the Youngstown law director. Breeden turned over his investigation to the Youngstown Law Department, which filed the 14 misdemeanor counts in October 2022 in city municipal court.

Paul Siegferth, who was Flynn’s attorney in the Youngstown Municipal Court case, filed a motion to dismiss contending the city prosecutor’s office failed to prove at a May 2023 hearing that no information from the police department’s internal affairs investigation was used in the criminal investigation of Flynn.

A Youngstown Municipal Court visiting judge dismissed Flynn’s case in June 2023, citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling – Garrity v. New Jersey – prohibiting the use in a criminal matter of any “compelled statement” taken from a public employee during an internal affairs investigation.

The 7th District Court of Appeals in March 2024 ruled against the city, which appealed the municipal court’s decision, saying the judge’s ruling “in this case was the proper remedy.”

Sellman wrote in his decision that there is no dispute that Flynn “intentionally failed to act upon or follow-through on” the referrals from the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

He wrote: “The arbitrator does not find from the evidence that (Flynn) purposefully flouted his duties to enforce the law. He clearly made incorrect assumptions and his reliance on those assumptions resulted in his violation of” city police rules.

In one case, Sellman wrote, a juvenile was sexually abused for more than 18 months before a county sheriff intervened and the perpetrator was arrested. Another case, Sellman wrote, involved six victims with the suspect sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Cremeans argued her client “was not aware that he would be receiving tips for which he was responsible for investigating,” and his unit didn’t “have the dedicated equipment and workspace needed to investigate” the cases.

She wrote that then-police Chief Carl Davis drafted a letter on Aug. 2, 2021, suspending Flynn for two weeks, but it was never given to the officer.

Sellman wrote considering Flynn’s lengthy law enforcement career and “his unfounded, yet mistaken, belief that others were handling” the cybertips as well as the lack of oversight from the state agency, he should be suspended without pay for two weeks, which was the initial decision of the city before filing criminal charges.

Sellman wrote the city’s contract with the police ranking officers union calls for progressive discipline.

The city argued the policy doesn’t apply if the conduct is serious.