STEUBENVILLE — Former East Springfield firefighters John Andrew-Scott Dunkle, 50, and Steve Brian Harris, 52, have been convicted in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court of stealing nearly $30,000 from the department they’d sworn to serve.

The jury found Harris, then treasurer of the department, responsible for misappropriating $20,000 of the squad’s funds and Dunkle, the department’s president from 2019-2020, for around $8,000.

Prosecutors had argued that Harris took money from the fire department’s coffers to pay his own electric bills, withdrew thousands more from ATM machines to pay his wife and brother for services that were never rendered and wrote himself more than $2,000 in checks for which there were no supporting documents.

They contended Dunkle and Harris also wrote checks to him that he signed and cashed, obtaining more than $6,000 that he wasn’t entitled to. They said he also signed checks to himself and his wife but could produce no supporting documentation for them. In all, they’d told the jurors Dunkle had used more than $8,000 in fire department funds to support his own lifestyle.

“This case is important because it shows that we hold those who are in positions of trust to a higher standard,” Prosecutor Jane Hanlin said. “These men gained the trust of the members of the East Springfield Fire Department and then used that trust to steal tens of thousands of dollars. That money was supposed to be used to fund the fire department and to keep the citizens of East Springfield safe. It was never intended to enrich the defendants.”

Hanlin commended Salem Township Trustee Kelly Prokopakis and former chief Gary McElroy “for exposing this theft of taxpayer dollars.”

“The department is in much better hands today than it was in 2019 and 2020 and the citizens of East Springfield should be proud of that,” she added.