JOSEPH SCHAEFFER

Holloway Mayor Joseph Schaeffer was convicted Wednesday of one of two charges connected to his alleged threats against the Belmont County Courthouse.

Schaeffer was in Belmont County Western Division Court before Judge Eric Costine for a jury trial that resulted from multiple phone calls made to the Belmont County Auditor’s Office. Its staff alleged that he threatened to blow up the courthouse this past February.

Schaeffer was convicted of aggravated menacing, but jurors determined he was innocent of inducing panic.

Belmont County assistant Prosecutor Joe Vavra called three witnesses who work at the auditor’s office — Auditor Cindi Henry and employees Nicole Alexander and Courtney Temple.

Temple said she first received a call from Schaeffer regarding the recent property tax increase in Belmont County. In Ohio, county auditors must set new property values every six years. A reappraisal process is conducted in which each parcel is to be inspected and appraised for its market value. Tax bills are then based on the assessed values, which amount to 35% of the appraised values.

Temple said she was trying to help Schaeffer until he said that he was going to blow the courthouse up, at which time she hung up the phone.

“My blood pressure was through the rough. I had hives. I thought I was gonna pass out,” she said of the impact of her conversation with Schaeffer.

Schaeffer was represented by Brandon Lippert of Lippert Law in Cambridge. Lippert argued that Schaeffer did not say that he was going to blow up the courthouse but that he would alert the media and “blow up” the story about the increased property taxes that he believed were “criminal.”

Vavra asked Temple if she would have acted any differently if what Lippert was saying was what happened.

“I would have just gone to my supervisor and said, ‘Hey, the news might be coming in to talk to us about the reevaluation,’ which they already had been there and we had already talked to them about it,” Temple said.

Following the phone call, Temple informed Belmont County Chief Deputy Auditor Jacob DeBertrand of the alleged threat. He sent her home due to how shaken up she was.

While Temple was informing Bertrand about the call, Alexander received a call from Schaeffer.

She told the court that he was angry and using foul language and then said that he would bring his 101 cousins to the courthouse to “take care of it.”

Lippert asked Alexander if the courthouse was evacuated or put on any type of lockdown. She replied that it was not.

He asked if the auditor’s office closed or stopped taking calls at any point throughout the day. She again replied no.

Lippert said he believes that Schaeffer told Temple that he would alert the media to “blow up” the story, and she told Bertrand, who then told Henry, which was like a game of telephone that children play in elementary school.

After roughly an hour and a half of deliberating, the jury returned with a guilty verdict for aggravated menacing, but determined he was not guilty of inducing panic.

Sentencing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. July 15 in Western Division Court.

Schaeffer was elected mayor in 2023 and took office Jan. 1, 2024.