Newburgh Heights Mayor Trevor Elkins hit with misdemeanor charges over campaign finance expenditures

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Newburgh Heights Mayor Trevor Elkins is billed with violating condition marketing campaign finance legal guidelines and tried theft in office environment connected to his campaign paying out in 2017.

Elkins is charged with two counts of tried election falsification and 1 depend of tried theft in workplace in an information and facts filed in Cuyahoga County Frequent Pleas Court docket. An information, which bypasses a grand jury, is typically a indicator that defendants have agreed to plead guilty.

Elkins is established to appear for an arraignment Thursday in Cuyahoga County Frequent Pleas Court docket.

Elkins, who has been mayor of the Cleveland suburb considering that 2011 and is lively in the county’s Democratic bash, declined to remark on the expenses in a textual content message.

“There will be an suitable moment for a statement. This is not that moment,” Elkins mentioned.

Asked if he prepared to keep on being in office environment, Elkins responded that he wanted to get again to a assembly.

Franklin County Prosecutor G. Gary Tayack, whose workplace acted as a specific prosecutor on the scenario soon after Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley recused his business, filed the expenses in a March 24 facts.

The charges stem from an investigation that dates back to 2019, right after the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections located for the duration of an audit that Elkins’ campaign funds did not match his expenses.

Elkins earlier admitted to misusing more than $134,100 of his marketing campaign money on 650 events from 2015 to 2019, cleveland.com and The Simple Vendor described in 2019. He employed a campaign debit card to go over schedule particular expenses. Elkins mentioned he often repaid the account and didn’t understand what he was undertaking was illegal till it was pointed out to him, the news business reported at the time.

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections referred Elkins’ expending to the Ohio Ethics Fee, which referred the case to O’Malley’s business for prosecution.