Gains requests 4 appointees for Oakhill probe

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Paul Gains

By Peter H. Milliken

The appointment of special prosecutors will ‘avoid any appearance of impropriety,’ the county prosecutor says.

YOUNGSTOWN — Special prosecutors are being sought to investigate possible ethics violations related to Mahoning County’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place.

Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains has asked the common pleas judges to appoint four special prosecutors to do the job.

Gains made his request in a court filing Tuesday morning. Having special prosecutors independent of Gains’ office “will avoid any appearance of impropriety,” the prosecutor wrote.

County commissioners bought Oakhill in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in summer 2006. Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.

Gains has asked the judges to appoint Dennis Patrick Will, prosecutor; and 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, as the special prosecutors.

All will be paid their salaries by their regular employers, and they will derive no extra compensation for their work as special prosecutors here; but Mahoning County will reimburse them for “any reasonable expenses and mileage incurred” and any clerical support expenses required for the probe.

In consultation with the ethics commission and Mahoning County Sheriff Randall A. Wellington, Gains wrote that he “has determined that the investigation has now progressed to a point where it is in the public interest to appoint special prosecutors to assist these investigative agencies with the ongoing investigation.”

“Under the law, it is now up to the judges to approve my request to appoint these four individuals,” Gains said in a brief interview in the midst of jury selection for a death-penalty case he is prosecuting.

In March, David Freel, executive director of the ethics commission, confirmed that the commission and Wellington’s office were investigating possible ethics violations by public officials and employees and those doing business with them, but Freel declined to be specific.

At that time, Gains said the probe concerns possible criminal violations of Ohio’s ethics law related to conflict of interest.

Also last spring, Commissioner John A. McNally IV and Treasurer Lisa A. Antonini confirmed they had received subpoenas from the county grand jury to produce documents and correspondence pertaining to Oakhill.

Gains explained in his request for the special prosecutors that: “The investigation involves numerous elected and appointed public officials who may be witnesses or potential targets.”

Two current Mahoning common pleas judges and at least one retired Mahoning common pleas judge have been identified as potential witnesses, Gains wrote, without naming them.

Therefore, he explained, “it is in the public interest” to appoint special prosecutors to ensure that “any decisions concerning the prosecution or lack of prosecution are truly independent.”

Nick declined to comment on what conclusions, if any, the commission has reached in the Oakhill investigation.

“It is a case that is of some import, so we’re going to want to be as diligent as we can,” Nick said.

Nick didn’t directly answer a reporter’s question on whether the commission believes there’s a likelihood of felony-level criminal charges being presented to a grand jury in the Oakhill probe.

He said, however, “The commission would not still be investigating the case if we thought there wasn’t reason that we should be.”

During a brief break in a capital murder trial, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, administrative judge of common pleas court, said he couldn’t comment because he hadn’t received a copy of Gains’ request.

Staff members in the office of Judge John M. Durkin, presiding judge, said they were unaware of Gains’ request late Tuesday.

Three county officials — Michael V. Sciortino, auditor; John B. Reardon, who was then county treasurer; and McNally — opposed the county’s acquisition of Oakhill.

They said their opposition was based on their concerns about undetermined costs associated with buying, operating and maintaining the 353,000-square-foot former hospital.

McNally was the sole dissenter when Commissioners Anthony T. Traficanti and David N. Ludt voted to buy Oakhill.

McNally, Sciortino and Antonini faxed a prepared statement to The Vindicator late Tuesday, saying they look forward to cooperating with any special prosecutor the judges may appoint in this probe.

“We are pleased to have learned through the media that our politically motivated county prosecutor has finally acknowledged that he cannot ethically investigate his own statutory clients,” they wrote.

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 in 2007.

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.

milliken@vindy.com