By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
A Bucyrus company has recently come under the scrutiny of the Ohio Attorney General but as far as the Bucyrus Chief of Police is concerned, there are no problems locally.
Attorney General Mike DeWine announced Wednesday that William and Waive Sharp and their business, Sharp Productions, are named as one of 18 defendants in a lawsuit filed by DeWine. DeWine filed the lawsuit and a temporary restraining order was granted against Youngstown-area Encore Music Productions Ltd. The company and its agents have been accused of deceiving donors while soliciting for firefighter and police charities.
Bucyrus Chief Dave Koepke said the Bucyrus Lodge 68 of the Fraternal Order of Police sponsors a music show every year to benefit youth and student community organizations, such as the Little League baseball team, Bucyrus Area Youth Soccer, and the Bucyrus Public Library programs. The Sharps and their company have done the promoting for the shows and the tickets.
“We haven’t had any problems locally at all,” Koepke said in relation to the Sharps and Sharp Productions.
Koepke noted the Sharps currently have a contract for an upcoming benefit show at the Crawford County Fairgrounds. That concert by Project Roundtable was originally scheduled for Saturday but has been postponed.
The chief said he believed the Sharps used to work with Encore.
DeWine’s office discovered over the course of its investigation that Encore, Phil’s Productions LLC of Youngstown, MVP Productions of Cambridge and Sharp Productions had committed a number of violations, including lying to donors when they stated that 100 percent of donations went to a local charity, training telemarketers to falsely identify themselves as volunteers and firefighters, and hiring over 22 recently convicted felons as telemarketers.
The Sharps and Sharp Productions could not be reached for comment.