Traficanti, Gains go before Oakhill jury

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Two Mahoning County officials spent a few hours with a grand jury and the special prosecutors probing the county’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place.

Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the county commissioners, and Prosecutor Paul J. Gains both appeared. Gains spent about two hours and Traficanti about an hour with the jurors.

Thursday’s appearance by special prosecutors Dennis P. Will and Paul M. Nick was their third known presentation of evidence to the grand jury — the others having occurred Feb. 11 and Feb. 25 — where all proceedings are secret.

Traficanti was escorted to and from the grand jury by Detective Gary Snyder of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department.

Gains arrived alone at the grand jury about 1 p.m., just moments after Traficanti left, and Gains left alone.

Shortly after the grand jurors departed from their extended session, Will and Nick left the county courthouse without commenting shortly after 3:30 p.m. No indictments concerning Oakhill were announced.

The investigation began with an October 2007 letter from Gains to the Ohio Ethics Commission, which voted to launch the Oakhill probe two months later.

At Gains’ request, the county’s common pleas judges appointed Will and Nick as special prosecutors in November 2008. Will is the Lorain County prosecutor, and Nick is the Ohio Ethics Commission’s chief investigative counsel.

Gains said then that the special prosecutors would be independent of his office and that their probe would concern possible criminal violations of Ohio’s ethics law related to conflict of interest.

The story of Oakhill dates back nearly four years to the county’s purchase of the five-story former hospital complex in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Commissioner John A. McNally IV was the sole dissenter when Commissioners Anthony T. Traficanti and David N. Ludt voted to buy Oakhill, which is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.

Citing concerns about unknown costs of buying, operating and maintaining the complex, McNally and county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and then-county Treasurer John B. Reardon publicly opposed the purchase.

As the county’s Department of Job and Family Services ended its 19-year tenancy at Garland Plaza on the city’s East Side and moved to Oakhill, Garland’s owner, the Cafaro Co., unsuccessfully sued to rescind the county’s purchase of Oakhill.

On the very day a bankruptcy judge approved the county’s Oakhill purchase in July 2006, McNally, Sciortino and Reardon met with Anthony M. Cafaro Sr., who was then president of the Cafaro Co., in Cafaro’s office, Reardon testified during the July 2007 trial of that lawsuit.

At the end of that trial, Visiting Judge Richard M. Markus ordered Sciortino to issue the county’s $75,000 check for the Oakhill purchase, which Sciortino had withheld for a year. Sciortino complied.

Sciortino, McNally and county Treasurer Lisa A. Antonini confirmed they received subpoenas directing them to turn over Oakhill-related documents and correspondence to the county grand jury in April 2008.

At the end of 2009, Anthony M. Cafaro Sr. and his brother, John J. Cafaro, who had been company vice president, announced their retirement and placed the company in the hands of Anthony’s sons, William A. and Anthony Jr., as co-presidents.