CLEVELAND — On Monday, Gov. Mike DeWine announced 10 local law enforcement agencies in the state will be granted more than $12 million, and one agency is the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.

It is being granted almost $1 million to help combat the rise of domestic and sexual assault violence that spiked because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ryan Bokoch, supervisor of the Crime Strategies Unit for the prosecutor’s office, explained what is being done with the money.

“It’s a two-year grant for funding for three additional positions to decrease that amount of workload and provide better justice opportunity for the citizens of Cuyahoga County and having better trained prosecutors handling these cases and more prosecutors really handling these cases,” he said. 

The addition of three more prosecutors to the staff that will focus on the assault cases will allow for more attention on the cases and victims.

Jeffrey Schnatter, supervisor of the Major Trial for the Special Victims Unit, said the new prosecutors will get to know their victims on a deeper level.  

“Having additional prosecutors dedicated to these cases enables us to get the relationships with these victims to make it less traumatic for them to go through the justice system,” he said.

Both Bokoch and Schnatter believe the grant will help decrease these types of crimes in the Cleveland community. Bokoch explained how increasing prosecutors will help decrease the crime.

“It’s our thought that this will reduce crime and this will help everyone in Cuyahoga County,” he said. “Whether or not you think this directly affects you or not, by reducing the recidivism and maybe the number of crimes that could happen in the future by using the criminal justice system, it helps people that don’t even know it because it does reduce crime.”

They are hoping to get the grant money in the next couple of months and will immediately begin the hiring process after that.