Local ethics probe confirmed
The county treasurer received a grand jury subpoena for Oakhill documents.
YOUNGSTOWN — The Ohio Ethics Commission and the Mahoning County prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices are investigating possible ethics violations by public officials and employees and those doing business with them.
David Freel, the commission’s executive director, confirmed the investigation and its purpose Wednesday, but he declined to be specific about the subject matter.
“Our investigative activity is confidential under Ohio law,” Freel said, adding that he can’t discuss details of any active investigation.
The probe concerns possible criminal violations of Ohio’s ethics law pertaining to conflict of interest, and county Prosecutor Paul J. Gains’ office is issuing the subpoenas in this case, Freel said.
When the commission completes an investigation, its findings are confidential and sent to the county prosecutor, he said. The prosecutor then has discretion to present felony charges to the county grand jury, or to file misdemeanor charges in municipal or county courts, and to make any disclosures of the findings, he explained.
County Treasurer Lisa A. Antonini confirmed she has received a subpoena from the Mahoning County grand jury to produce documents and correspondence pertaining to Oak-hill Renaissance Place by sometime in April, but she couldn’t remember the specific date.
She referred further inquiries to her lawyer, Damian Billak, who said the due date to produce the materials is in late April, but the subpoena does not call for Antonini to appear as a grand jury witness. Billak said his client would cooperate fully with the probe, but he declined to discuss details concerning the matter.
Sheriff Randall A. Wellington said the subpoenas are grand jury subpoenas for documents. He, too, declined to be specific about the subject matter. Grand juries meet in secret.
“These subpoenas are part of an ongoing ethics investigation that was started last fall,” Gains said. “Nobody should draw any conclusions because subpoenas have been issued to assist in the investigation,” he added. Gains also declined to discuss details of the probe.
The county commissioners bought Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the summer of 2006. The Ohio Valley Mall Co., a subsidiary of the Cafaro Co., filed a taxpayers’ lawsuit that unsuccessfully sought to rescind the county’s purchase of Oakhill.
OVM is the former landlord for the county’s Department of Job and Family Services, which moved from OVM’s Garland Plaza on the city’s East Side to Oakhill last summer.
OVM also filed a breach of lease lawsuit, alleging that the county failed to fulfill its maintenance obligations at Garland Plaza, which had housed JFS since 1988. The county settled the breach-of-lease lawsuit for $913,590 in exchange for OVM’s agreement to drop its appeal of its loss in the taxpayers’ lawsuit.
John J. Cafaro, executive vice president of the Cafaro Co., said he hadn’t received any subpoena and wasn’t aware of any having been issued to his brother, Anthony Cafaro, company president.
Three county officials — Michael V. Sciortino, county auditor; John A. McNally IV, county commissioner; and John B. Reardon, then county treasurer — opposed the county’s acquisition of Oakhill in 2006.
Reardon testified in the trial of the taxpayer’s lawsuit that he, McNally and Sciortino met with Anthony Cafaro at Cafaro Co. headquarters within hours after the county bought Oakhill at the bankruptcy court hearing.
Antonini, who was chief deputy treasurer under Reardon, testified in that trial that her cellular phone records showed 28 calls made or received between her and Cafaro headquarters between August 2006 and March 2007.
Antonini said she never spoke to Anthony Cafaro about the Oakhill project, and that many of the phone calls between her and Cafaro in the year before the trial pertained to her role as Democratic Party chairwoman.
She recalled that, after she became treasurer, John J. Cafaro made a public records request to her office concerning the commissioners’ decision to consolidate the county’s outstanding debt to finance the Oakhill project and concerning the paperwork related to bond sales. She said she believes he got the information from the county auditor’s office.
McNally said he received no subpoena. Sciortino did not return a call seeking comment. Reardon could not be reached.
County Administrator George J. Tablack did not return a call seeking comment.
milliken@vindy.com