ST. CLAIRSVILLE — 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 Courntey Temple.

Temple said she first received a call from Schaeffer in regards to 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.”

“He was using very foul language and calling us a bunch of crooks. He was just screaming. So after he started talking about bringing his large family and his ‘101 cousins up to the courthouse’ that’s when I decided that I needed to end the call,” she said. “I could tell how upset he was. The language he was using was not typical of the phone calls that we get when people are upset about something. So I could tell this was a different kind of phone call.”

Vavra then asked Alexander if Schaeffer mentioned anything about alerting the media. She said that he did not.

Henry said she was in a meeting with a school superintendent when DeBertrand entered her office.

“I could tell he had something that was bothering him. I asked him and he advised me that a young lady that works in our real estate office in the back of the building had received a phone call and was threatened and the individual threatened to let a bomb off. I told him at that time just have her make a statement and said, ‘If she doesn’t feel well or she’s upset, she just needs to go home,’ and then I would take care of getting her statement either to the sheriff and/or the prosecutor’s office,” Henry said.

She added that DeBertrand notified the sheriff’s office, which attracted a large police presence to the courthouse.

Lippert asked her 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.

“The government wants you to convict Mr. Schaeffer for being angry, for yelling, for saying something dramatic, for trying loudly and imperfectly to get somebody to listen to him. Did the courthouse shut down? No. Did the auditor’s office stop answering phones? No. Did business continue as usual? Yes,” Lippert said.

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.