Thursday, March 3, 2011

Bond still $1 million for Ieropoli


March 2, 2011 - By MATTHEW SCHOMER (Special to The Review)
LISBON - Bond will remain at $1 million for at least another week for a Lisbon-area man accused of making a threat on his father's life.
A trial date for Jesse Ieropoli, 20, state Route 45, on a first-degree misdemeanor charge of aggravated menacing, is scheduled for 9 a.m. March 16. An additional pretrial and motion hearing will be held 1 p.m. Tuesday.
Public Defense Attorney Eric Kibler requested Tuesday Judge Mark Frost lower Ieropoli's bond to the original amount of $5,000. He also requested Frost lift the bond condition that Ieropoli is to have no contact with his father, Nick Ieropoli.
Frost had set the bond at $1 million last week after county Prosecutor Robert Herron revealed that Jesse Ieropoli had admitted to having accidentally shot his mother in 2008. His mother's death was determined to be a homicide by the county coroner, but the investigation is still pending.
"My client has not gone away since that time. He has never fled the area," Kibler noted Tuesday.
But Herron noted when Nick Ieropoli called the county Sheriff's Office after receiving the alleged threat, he was in fear for his own safety.
"This defendant still poses a risk, in our judgment, not just to his father but to the public," Herron told the judge.
Kibler at a previous court appearance had noted Jesse Ieropoli's grandmother and aunt were willing to take him into their shared home. Herron argued the grandmother is elderly and suffering from dementia and he does not feel the aunt can oversee Ieropoli based on interviews held with her in different cases.
Kibler said he spoke with the aunt over the telephone and she appeared to be competent.
Frost noted the information revealed last week regarding the death of Jesse Ieropoli's mother coupled with the alleged threats on the life of his father and his own assured him the bond should remain at $1 million and the no-contact order should stay in place.
"I think all these factors mitigate that the bond should remain where it is," he said.
Nick Ieropoli was in Frost's courtroom in county Municipal Court Tuesday afternoon for the pretrial.
He did not, however, show up Friday at the County Court of Common Pleas, for a hearing on a temporary protection order he had filed against his son. The petition for the protection order has since been dismissed and the temporary protection order has been dissolved.
Youngstown-based attorney John Juhasz is expected to replace Kibler as Jesse Ieropoli's attorney at subsequent court appearances in the case.

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