Filos appears for pretrial on environmental case

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Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015 – Christopher Filos, former owner of HPM in Mt. Gilead, appeared with his attorneys before Judge Howard Hall in the Morrow County Common Pleas Court this afternoon.

Judge Hall explained Filos’ appearance was for three separate criminal cases. One purpose of today’s’ hearing was to be for sentencing on one of two of those cases.

Filos had originally been indicted by the Morrow County Grand Jury in January of 2012 on charges of aggravated theft, (F3); failure to remit state income tax withheld (F5); and theft, a felony of the fourth degree.

As part of the plea agreement, the theft charges had a ‘change of defendant’ from Christopher Filos to Taylor Industrial Services LLC.

Under what is known as a bill of information, he pleaded guilty to all three counts. He waived his right to a jury trial.

Filos changed his plea on count two from not guilty to guilty and was ordered to remit restitution to the Village of Mt. Gilead in the amount of $44,687.47 by September 30, 2015.

As president of Taylor Industrial services LLC, Filos represented the corporation and pleaded guilty to counts one and three (the theft charges). As Taylor Industries, he agreed to pay restitution of approximately $216,811.21 over a 24 month period and was to appear today for sentencing in that case. Failure to meet any part of the agreed upon plea deal would result in revocation of the plea, and Filos could face possible jail time of up to 11 months. The charges against Filos will be diverted if he fulfills the requirements of the plea deal.

“One of the conditions of the plea agreement was that Mr. Filos was to make certain payments to the Village of Mt Gilead and the State of Ohio,” Assistant County Prosecutor Tom Elkin explained in court. “He was counting on a resource, some monies coming from a foreclosure matter and those monies have not yet been distributed. I think we have that taken care of, signed the entry and those monies will be released to Mr. Filos’ attorneys and then distributed.”

In a separate 2015 case, Filos appeared for a pretrial hearing on one count of illegal storage of hazardous waste, which is an unclassified felony. The charge stems from his time as the owner of HPM. The property required environmental clean-up by the Ohio EPA. That case is set for a final pretrial on Friday, October 23, 2015 at 11 am and the trial is set for November 16, 2015 at 9 am.

Christopher Filos listens to his attorney during his hearing Tuesday in Common Pleas Court. The case is set for a final pretrial in October and the trial is set for mid-November. Donna Carver | Morrow County Sentinel
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2015/09/web1_FilosSept29.jpgChristopher Filos listens to his attorney during his hearing Tuesday in Common Pleas Court. The case is set for a final pretrial in October and the trial is set for mid-November. Donna Carver | Morrow County Sentinel

By Donna Carver

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