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Zachariah booked on corruption charges in Oakhill case
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John Zachariah
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- (7/29) BIOGRAPHIES: CAFAROS || Biographies
- (7/29) BIOGRAPHIES: OAKHILL PROBE || Other bios
- (7/30) OPINION: A break with public trust is ample cause for resignation
- (7/30) CHARGES: OAKHILL || WHO'S CHARGED
By Peter Milliken
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Less than an hour before a court-imposed deadline, John Zachariah, former Mahoning County Job and Family Services director, was booked on corruption charges related to the county’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place and then released from the county justice center.
Dressed in a blue business suit and wearing a tie, Zachariah, 64, of Chagrin Falls, arrived alone at the justice center at 9:18 a.m. Wednesday and emerged without comment about 35 minutes later.
After he was arraigned in absentia Tuesday, Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court gave him a 10 a.m. Wednesday deadline to self-report to the justice center for booking, and she ordered him to be released immediately on his own recognizance without posting a cash bond.
Zachariah is charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, two counts of conspiracy, three counts of perjury and one count each of bribery and tampering with records. He has pleaded innocent to all charges.
Zachariah is one of seven defendants named in a 73-count Mahoning County grand jury indictment issued July 28 who are accused of conspiring criminally to prevent or delay JFS’ move from Cafaro Co.-owned rented quarters to Oakhill, which the county bought in 2006.
Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, to which JFS moved in July 2007.
Zachariah, who became JFS director here on July 5, 2005, abruptly announced his resignation at a February 2007 county commissioners’ meeting and made it effective March 2, 2007.
However, the indictment says he participated in the conspiracy from the day he became JFS director here until Dec. 12, 2008.
David P. Muhek, an assistant Lorain County prosecutor serving as a special prosecutor in the Oakhill case, declined to discuss details of the case after Zachariah’s arraignment.
When he resigned, Zachariah said he was leaving because of “a lack of openness and transparency in the government and unnecessary interference by the county administrator,” George J. Tablack, and a lack of communication in county government.
Before taking the Mahoning County post, Zachariah had been Franklin County JFS director.