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Evidence mounts in Oakhill court case
Yavorcik/F. Cafaro Bill of Particulars
Document
The of Ohio vs. Martin Yavorcik and Flora Cafaro.
By Peter Milliken
Prosecutor gives 36,000 pages to defense lawyers
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
A special prosecutor has provided more than 36,000 pages of evidence to defense lawyers in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case in a process known as pretrial discovery.
The court docket shows David P. Muhek, an assistant Lorain County prosecutor, who is one of five special prosecutors assigned to the case, notified court officials this week that he had given the voluminous discovery to lawyers for all defendants.
The evidence provided in discovery, which includes court documents and financial and telephone records, will not be a matter of public record until the evidence is introduced in the trial, said Paul M. Nick, a lead special prosecutor.
Nick is chief investigative counsel for the Ohio Ethics Commission.
The jury trial is set to begin June 6, 2011, before visiting Judge William H. Wolff Jr. of Kettering.
The notice of furnishing discovery says the evidence furnished includes a DVD containing 36,089 pages of documents; another DVD containing photographs and audio and video recordings; and the prosecution’s initial witness list.
Ten defendants were charged in a 73-count Mahoning County grand jury indictment issued July 28.
Eight of the defendants are charged with conspiring to prevent or delay the move of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services from Cafaro Co.-owned rented quarters at Garland Plaza to Oakhill on Oak Hill Avenue, which the county bought in 2006.
Those defendants are Anthony M. Cafaro Sr., retired president of the Cafaro Co.; the Cafaro Co. and two of its affiliates, the Ohio Valley Mall Co. and the Marion Plaza Inc.; county Commissioner John A. McNally IV; county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino; former county treasurer John B. Reardon; and John Zachariah, the former county JFS director.
Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, to which JFS moved in July 2007.
Two other defendants, Flora Cafaro, part-owner of the Cafaro Co. and sister of Anthony Cafaro Sr., and Atty. Martin Yavorcik, are charged with money laundering in connection with an allegedly concealed $15,000 gift she gave to Yavorcik’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for county prosecutor.
The special prosecutors publicly filed in August a bill of particulars detailing the money laundering charge pertaining to Yavorcik and Flora Cafaro.
Separate bills of particulars for the eight other defendants will likely be filed within the next three weeks, “if not sooner,” Nick said. The filings will be made “as soon as we can,” Nick said.
After those bills are filed, defendants will have 14 days to object in writing to public release of portions of their content, and prosecutors will then have 14 days to respond to any objections. After that, the judge will screen the bills, redact anything he finds prejudicial, and then publicly release the remainder.
Because of his concern about the possible impact of pre trial publicity on potential jurors, Judge Wolff ordered earlier this month that all non-procedural filings in this case be made under seal and screened by him before they are publicly released.
“We’re not sure that everything that is being produced has been delivered yet, so it really wouldn’t be appropriate for us to comment on it at this point,” Joe Bell, the Cafaro Co.’s director of corporate communications, said of the prosecution’s evidence.
McNally and Sciortino did not respond to requests for comment on the evidence delivered to their lawyers; and Sciortino’s lawyer, John B. Juhasz declined to comment.