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Oakhill grand jury extended until July 30
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County’s eight common-pleas judges have unanimously agreed to extend the grand jury probing potential criminal conflicts of interest in the county’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place until July 30.
But the judgment entry that all eight of them signed and filed Thursday said this would be the second and final extension.
The grand jury’s originally scheduled four-month term was to expire April 30, but special prosecutors Dennis P. Will and Paul M. Nick asked for and received from the judges an extension through Thursday.
Will and Nick said they wanted the first extension to allow for continuity of the evidence presentation before the same grand jury.
However, their motion expressing their rationales for the second extension is not a public document, said Kathi McNabb Welsh, chief deputy clerk of courts. All grand jury proceedings are secret.
Lewis Katz, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, said he wasn’t familiar with the details of the case involving Oakhill, which is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
However, he observed that extensions are more common for federal grand juries than for those in Ohio’s common-pleas courts because federal grand juries more commonly handle complex major fraud and government corruption cases.
For example, he noted that a federal grand jury in Cleveland has been probing corruption in Cuyahoga County government for almost two years.
“Sometimes, complicated investigations just drag out, which is obviously what you have there” regarding Oakhill, Katz said.
Katz noted that Will and Nick are not stationed in Youngstown and have full-time jobs in Elyria and Columbus, respectively. Will is the Lorain County prosecutor, and Nick is chief investigative counsel for the Ohio Ethics Commission.
“Witnesses may testify about matters that open new questions and lines of inquiry,” and that’s what’s likely occurring before the grand jury in the Oakhill matter, Katz said.
Another reason for an extension might be to allow more time for the grand jury to receive documents requested or subpoenaed by the grand jury or special prosecutors, he said.
Yet another reason might be to allow time for some targets of the probe to come forward and plead guilty to an information and turn state’s evidence against other targets of the probe rather than risk indictment, he said.
“They may be negotiating with one or more people and trying to get their testimony in return for some sort of [plea bargain] deal,” he said of the special prosecutors.