Four special prosecutors assigned to Oakhill probe
Oakhill Renaissance Place
The county prosecutor had requested the appointment last month.
YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County common pleas judges have appointed four special prosecutors to investigate possible ethics violations related to Mahoning County’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place.
Seven judges signed a judgment entry Monday to appoint the prosecutors as requested Oct. 7 by Paul J. Gains, Mahoning County prosecutor.
The four will are: Dennis P. Will, prosecutor; Anthony Dean Cillo and Billie Jo Belcher, assistant prosecutors, all from the Lorain County prosecutor’s office; and Paul M. Nick, chief investigative counsel with the Ohio Ethics Commission.
The judges who signed the judgment entry were R. Scott Krichbaum, John M. Durkin, James C. Evans and Maureen A. Sweeney, all of the general division; Beth A. Smith of domestic relations court; Theresa Dellick of juvenile court; and Mark A. Belinky of probate court.
Gains said he was requesting the special prosecutors, who would be independent of his office, to “avoid any appearance of impropriety.” Gains has said the probe concerns possible criminal violations of Ohio’s ethics law related to conflict of interest.
The Mahoning County commissioners bought Oakhill in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the summer of 2006. Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
In his request for the special prosecutors, Gains said: “The investigation involves numerous elected and appointed public officials who may be witnesses or potential targets.”
Two current Mahoning County common pleas judges and at least one retired Mahoning County common pleas judge have been identified as potential witnesses, Gains wrote, without naming them.
Last spring, County Commissioner John A. McNally IV, Treasurer Lisa A. Antonini and Auditor Michael V. Sciortino confirmed they had received subpoenas directing them to turn over Oakhill-related documents and correspondence to a county grand jury.
In 2006, three county officials — John B. Reardon, who was then treasurer, Sciortino and McNally — opposed the county’s acquisition of Oakhill, citing concerns about undetermined costs of buying, operating and maintaining the 353,000-square-foot former hospital.
McNally was the sole dissenter when the other commissioners, Anthony T. Traficanti and David N. Ludt, voted to buy Oakhill.
Reardon testified in a court proceeding that he, Sciortino and McNally met with Anthony Cafaro, president of the Cafaro Co., in Cafaro offices within hours after the county bought Oakhill.
The Cafaro Co., which unsuccessfully sued to rescind the county’s purchase of Oakhill, is the former landlord for the county’s Department of Job and Family Services, which moved from Cafaro’s Garland Plaza on the city’s East Side to Oakhill in 2007.
One of the special prosecutors has been with the state ethics commission for 13 years.
Nick joined the ethics commission as an investigative counsel in 1995, before assuming his current post as chief investigative attorney in 2000.
Between 1991 and 1995, he was an assistant Columbus city prosecutor and an assistant city attorney in the civil division.
Nick, of Hilliard, received a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois in 1987 and his law degree from The Ohio State University in 1990.
Another of the special prosecutors brings vast prosecutorial and law enforcement experience to his assignment here.
Will, who became Lorain County’s elected prosecutor Jan. 1, 2005, was previously an assistant prosecutor for that county for 15 years.
Will’s background includes four years in the Marine Corps, 25 years as an Elyria police officer, and one year each as a Lorain County sheriff’s deputy and Sheffield Village prosecutor.
He received his law degree in 1986 from Cleveland State University after graduating from Lorain County Community College and Heidelberg College.