Defense in Oakhill conspiracy case continues two-month wait for tapes

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Defense lawyers in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case are still waiting for the prosecution to deliver to them thousands of hours of tapes that may pertain to the case.

It’s been more than two months after the defense lawyers learned of the recordings’ existence.

And to compound the situation, the tapes may be part of an overlapping federal investigation of corruption in the Mahoning Valley. A special prosecutor said, however, he’s not sure how significant the tapes, which are now in the FBI’s possession, will be for the defendants.

“I believe it’s a bureaucratic problem to get the federal authorities to share the evidence,” said J. Gerald Ingram, concerning the delay in providing the tapes to defense lawyers. Ingram is a defense lawyer representing Atty. Martin Yavorcik, who is charged only with one count of money laundering, and not with conspiracy, in the Oakhill case.

“We don’t know if they are tapes relating to this case. We know they could potentially tangentially relate to this case,” said David P. Muhek, an Oakhill special prosecutor.

Muhek also made reference to other probes now under way. “There are additional overlapping investigations that are occurring right now,” Muhek, an assistant Lorain County prosecutor, told the defense lawyers in the March 31 hearing before visiting Judge William H. Wolff Jr. of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Muhek, who disclosed the existence of the tapes to the defense for the first time in that court hearing, said his office learned of the other probes and of the tapes in recent months from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Muhek said he had no idea whether the tapes were recorded with the consent of the participants in the conversations.

“Until I actually get them and listen to them, I don’t know” whether they were consensually recorded, said Lou DeFabio, the lawyer for John Reardon, the former county treasurer, who is one of the Oakhill defendants.

DeFabio said he presumes Reardon’s voice isn’t on any of the tapes, but he can’t be sure of that.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com