The STARK COUNTY POLITICAL REPORT (The Report) has learned that supporters of Ron and Kyle Devies are forming a DEVIES FAMILY DEFENSE FUND to help Marlboro's police chief and his son come up with the financial wherewithal to defend themselves againist Stark County Grand Jury indictment charges which were an outgrowth of an criminal investigation launched by Marlboro Township trustees.Readers of The Report will recall that Kyle Devies started out as a volunteer to fix the Township's decrepit computer system several years ago.
Trustee Wise got wind of the "volunteer" status and insisted, according to Police Chief Ron Devies, that Kyle be put on the township payroll. Apparently, that was before Wise and his fellow Dave Wolf figured out that the chief was not easily ordered around by trustee micromanaging when it came to how he ran the police department.
The Report believes that once Wise and Wolf concluded that the chief was going to run the Marlboro Township Police Department the way he saw fit, they devised Plan B.
If there was a Plan B, what would it be?
The Report is of the opinion that Plan B was to replace Ron Devies as police chief and they (not Trustee Shilig) were waiting for something to materialize (e.g. out-and-out insubordination) that they felt would carry the day, in terms of community acquiescence, to implement the plan.
Nobody is really sure (outside of Sheriff Swanson, Prosecutor Ferrero and the grand jury members) as of the writing of this blog, exactly what the factual allegations are which underlie the indictments. Speculation seems to center on Kyle and his use of township computers with the complicity of his father in the alleged mischief.,
With the grand jury action (remember the popular saying about grand jury indictments" "a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the prosecutor asked it to), Kyle Devies stands charged with a fourth degree felony: Disrupting a Public Service and, his father Ron, with Complicity in Disrupting a Public Service. These charges carry a possibility for a 6 to 18 month jail term and up to $5,000 in fines.
The Report thinks at the end of the day the Devies will be acquitted or work out a plea bargain.
If there is an acquittal, one would think that there will be a civil suit and Ron Devies could wind up re-instated as police chief as part of a settlement of such a suit.
The Report likes to think and believes that this whole matter has gotten out-of-hand and Trustees Wise and Wolf wish they could "put the genie back in the bottle." But they can't. So what The Report' believes started out as something like "we have to replace our insubordinate police chief" is now way beyond that.
This whole scenario is tragic for all concerned: the Devies, the trustees and the community of Marlboro.
It sounds like that genie would be better off finding resignations from those listed trustees than a resignation from a police chief. As an IT professional, if I were updating a system, I would do it one by one. IF they took the whole thing down to update, there might actually be a good reason for it. Certainly if the person doing the updating was a volunteer (family or not) doing it as fast as possible would be a goal. To think that this could turn around and really bite the township if the Devies family decided to, really makes one ponder the grasp of the trustees and even the prosecutor.
ReplyDeleteAs a resident of the township I am truely ashamed at how this has been handled by the tustees. Right or wrong an accusation should have been made and investigated. As an IT professional, many things could be misconstrued. Normal functions as an IT person can be percieved as inappropriate when they are truely standard practice. If backups were made before any systems were worked on, then it really cannot be said that someone was trying to cause system issues. If the township did/does not have an IT policy on how the systems should be used, maintained and backed up then shame on our Township/trustees for thier incompetance. I look forward to finding out the true details when all comes out in court. Regardless I will not support the trustees that I voted for last election due to the way this has been handled. The township residents views have been clearly expressed at the meetings. Why do our elected officials not heed those requests, or even explain why they cannot?
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