Ohio Supreme Court rules against Gains on several fronts in Oakhill case

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled against Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains on several procedural matters in a public-records complaint against Gains.

Lawyers representing the Cafaro interests in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-conspiracy case filed the complaints.

The top court overruled Gains’ motion to delay the public-records case until the criminal case is resolved.

It also ruled last week against Gains’ alternative request that the Cafaro lawyers be barred from inquiring about matters pertaining to the criminal case in their questioning of him or his assistant prosecutors, Gina Bricker and Linette Stratford, in depositions in the records case.

The top court also denied Gains’ motion to limit recording of those depositions to court stenography and to bar videotaping of those depositions, or, at least, to bar use of the tapes outside of court proceedings in the records case.

Bricker and Stratford have been subpoenaed to give sworn depositions on Thursday and Friday, respectively, in the downtown Youngstown office of a court stenography firm. Gains said Sunday that he expects to give his deposition Friday afternoon at that firm.

In his motion, Gains objected to the video because he doesn’t want a repeat of the paid broadcasts that occurred in 2007, when excerpts of pre-trial depositions of Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti and then-Commissioner David N. Ludt were broadcast by the Cafaro Co. on local TV stations.

Those broadcasts occurred before a civil trial, in which the Cafaro Co. tried unsuccessfully to rescind the county’s purchase of Oakhill.

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