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Sanctions sought against witness used by United Local BOE

LISBON — Sanctions are being sought against the expert witness used by the United Local school board in its dispute with the Columbiana County Board of Revision over the appraised value of Utica East Ohio Midstream’s natural gas collection-and-processing facility in Kensington.

The law firm representing Utica East Ohio filed a motion in November asking the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals to punish George E. Sansoucy by banning him from testifying before the BTA for five years because of the deliberately false and misleading testimony he allegedly gave at the hearing last year.

“This is about a witness who claims expertise that he has shown not to have and then lies about it. This about a witness who makes claims that he has performed work that he has not done. This is about a witness who purposely creates ‘facts’ in the guise of opinion testimony to support his own conclusions. This is about a witness who purposefully buries his misconduct in volumes of materials, then asks the board to not to bother to look into the detail because he can be trusted,” wrote attorney Steven Smiseck of the Columbus law firm of Vorys, Sater & Pease.

The dispute dates back to 2016, when the school board filed an appeal with county board of revision challenging the county auditor office’s valuation for the Kensington plant. The plant and 150 acres were appraised at $3.3 million for taxation purposes, resulting in $25,922 in annual property taxes for United Local.

Sansoucy, a professional engineer and property appraiser from Lancaster, N.H., was hired by the school board to assist them in their appeal. He argued the combined real estate valuation should be increased to $40 million, but the board of revision ruled otherwise. United Local appealed the decision to the state BTA.

The county hearing occurred in 2016, when the auditor’s office was in the process of completing its countywide reappraisal, with the new values to take affect in 2017.

The county ended up increasing the Kensington plant’s valuation to $12.6 million in 2017 after its appraiser viewed the new construction at the Kensington plant, but Utica and United Local filed appeals with the county board of revision.

Meanwhile, a seven-day hearing before the BTA was held in May 2018. Last September, before the BTA ruled, United Local announced it had reached an agreement with Utica in which the company agreed to abide by the $12.6 million valuation and not file any further appeals.

The agreement also called for the school board and Utica to drop its appeals before the BTA. Before that could happen, Utica filed its motion to sanction Sansoucy, and it must be resolved before the BTA can dismiss the appeal.

Assistant County Prosecutor Krista Peddicord, representing the board of revision, joined in support of Utica’s motion to have Sansoucy sanctioned by the BTA.

She was particularly troubled by Sansoucy’s claim under oath that he viewed and studied all 56 piping systems at the plant, either in person or by examining plant drawings, only to learn 30 piping systems existed at the site.

Peddicord said the testimony of a Utica employee would “reveal” that Sansoucy’s claim to have viewed a number of other plant components are bogus because those components do not exist either.

“During cross examination it became apparent Mr. Sansoucy was aware of a number of other errors with respect to his appraisal report, which he did not correct or voluntarily bring to the attention of the parties and/or BTA. Instead, he actively concealed these errors and continued to advocate as to the soundness and reliability of his appraisal report,” she said.

The school board is not opposed to sanctions being sought against Sansoucy, stating in its motion it first became aware during the appeal hearing that his “appraisal report contained material errors and that some of the the testimony elicited by (UEO) from Mr. Sansoucy on cross examination undermined statements and conclusions in Mr. Sansoucy’s appraisal report.”

Sansoucy’s attorney, Shawn Organ, in his motion in opposition to sanctions, described whatever errors his client made as “minor, often immaterial, errors in the context of the massive project he carried out, and in most notable cases they arose from his reliance on Utica’s own documents.”

“But perhaps the greatest liberty Utica takes with the record is to give the false impression that Mr. Sansoucy inflated his valuation by including the costs of dozens of piping systems that didn’t really exist (but that, as Utica concedes, were in fact listed on the piping drawings Utica produced to Mr. Sansoucy),” Organ added.

He concluded by saying, “Mr. Sansoucy carried out a large, difficult, first-of-its-kind project in inventorying and valuing the taxable property at the Kensington facility. He was cross-examined for days on his work, and the vast majority of his valuation emerged unscathed. To be sure, he made some largely immaterial mistakes in his report and testimony, which is to be expected in such circumstances, and it is because such mistakes are inevitable that cross-examination exists in the first place. Those mistakes were made honestly and in good faith, and Utica’s attempts to rewrite the record should be rejected.”

Neither Utica’s attorney nor assistant prosecutor Peddicord believe United Local or its law firm were aware of Sansoucy’s alleged deceit. “They are not equipped to to catch Mr. Sansoucy’s self-serving claims. It is Utica’s belief that Sansoucy willingly victimized his client in this case,” Smiseck wrote.

Sansoucy was reportedly paid more than $400,000. In United Local’s settlement agreement with Utica there is a provision requiring Utica set aside $25,000 for the school district to use for paying Utica’s law firm for fees it incurs investigating “any deficiencies” in Sansoucy’s appraisal report. The purpose is to gather information the school district could use to recover what it paid Sanscoucy.

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