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Ohio top court grants stay in Oakhill trial
YOUNGSTOWN
The Ohio Supreme Court in Columbus has granted Mahoning County’s request for a stay of the county’s deadline to respond to an action filed by a lawyer for two Cafaro Co. affiliates in the Oakhill criminal proceedings.
The stay is pending the outcome of mediation of the mandamus case.
The mandamus complaint was filed at the top court Sept. 20 by Atty. John F. McCaffrey of Cleveland in support of McCaffrey’s public-records request concerning Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
McCaffrey said the county prosecutor’s office didn’t completely fulfill his request in accordance with the state’s open-records law.
The county’s deadline to file a written response at the Ohio Supreme Court was Monday, and the top court granted the stay late Monday afternoon. The high court, which had sent the public-records dispute to mediation Oct. 14, said it would set a new response deadline for the county if the matter is returned from mediation.
County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains asked for the stay Friday after Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of common pleas court overruled the hiring of a Columbus law firm to represent Gains and the county commissioners who are defendants in the mandamus complaint.
On Thursday, Judge Sweeney overruled a resolution by the county commissioners to hire Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease, saying their fees are excessive.
In a follow-up motion filed Monday, Gains told the top court the stay would facilitate mediation by postponing adversarial proceedings and allow the county to resolve the matter of appointment of outside lawyers.
McCaffrey represents the Ohio Valley Mall Co. and The Marion Plaza Inc., both Cafaro Co. affiliates, in the criminal-conspiracy case concerning Oakhill.
In that case, eight defendants, including the Cafaro Co. and those two affiliates and current and former county officials, are accused of conspiring criminally to prevent or delay the move of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services from an Ohio Valley Mall property to the county-owned Oakhill.
The criminal case is set for a jury trial June 6 before visiting Judge William H. Wolff Jr. of Kettering.