The Community Post

Wapakoneta mayor indicted

WAPAKONETA — Wapakoneta Mayor Tom Stinebaugh has been indicted by an Auglaize County grand jury on 17 counts of public corruption charges related to business dealings he conducted while in his elected position.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost issued a press release Friday morning that said Stinebaugh is charged with eight counts of having an unlawful interest in a public contract, a felony of the fourth degree; eight counts of conflict of interest, a misdemeanor of the first degree; and one count of theft in office, a felony of the third degree.

Stinebaugh declined comment on the indictment, saying he hadn’t seen any paper work and only knew of the charges when his cell phone “started blowing up” with messages from people who had seen the news before he had.

The charges stem from allegations that in his capacity as mayor, Stinebaugh entered into contracts with family members and a business partner. Additionally, he is accused of having the city pay for a sewer line on a property that his private company was developing. These incidents occurred between 2016 and 2019.

While officials from the Ohio Ethics Commission declined to comment on the case, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office alleges the city of Wapakoneta paid for a sewer line to serve a Fairview Drive property upon which Stinebaugh built a home.

Stinebaugh was elected mayor in November of 2015, unseating incumbent Mayor Rod Metz. He took office in January 2016, and was re-elected to a second four-year term in November 2019. His current term expires at the end of 2023.

Yost said suspension proceedings will be initiated for Stinebaugh under Ohio Revised Code 3.16, which authorizes the suspension of a public official who has been charged with a felony in a state or federal court when the felony relates to the performance of the official’s duties. If suspended, city council President Steve Henderson will be the acting mayor. If unseated, the Republican Party Central Committee will chose a successor until one is elected.

Henderson confirmed the order of succession but had no comment on the indictment.

The case was investigated by the Ohio Ethics Commission and the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The Ohio Attorney General’s Special Prosecutions Section is prosecuting the case.

News the mayor was under investigation first surfaced late in 2019 when the rumor mill was running rampant that Stinebaugh was under criminal investigation. At that time Stinebaugh said he’d done nothing wrong.

In December of 2019 Stinebaugh said he had been contacted by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office concerning the contract work he performed in 2017 at the greenhouse formerly known as Golden Fresh Farms.

Stinebaugh said the implication that there was wrong-doing in his receiving contract work from the former owners of the greenhouse is “petty.”

At the time the only information a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General would release was to confirm a special prosecutor was appointed to be the prosecutor in the case.

In conversations with representatives of the AG’s office, Stinebaugh said he was told the state would “accept nothing less than my resigning from office and that’s not going to happen.”

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2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thecommunitypost.pressreader.com/article/281522229120241

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