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Judge in Oakhill case granted the extension
CLEVELAND
The judge overseeing the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case agreed to give attorneys for two of the defendants more time to prepare arguments about the trial’s location.
In a two-sentence journal entry, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court granted the deadline for filing pretrial motions in this case for 60 days after prosecutors submit their notice of what evidence they may use. Her entry was recorded at that county’s clerk of courts office at 7:18 a.m. Thursday.
The attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and Mahoning County Michael V. Sciortino, both Democrats, wrote in identical motions filed Nov. 29 and Dec. 1 that they hadn’t had adequate time to review 354 secret recordings, most an hour or two long, that prosecutors plan to use as evidence.
The defense wanted 60 days to review the evidence from the time all of the tapes and documents from prosecutors are given to them to determine if that will help them decide if they will file a motion seeking to move the case from Cuyahoga County.
In a response Tuesday, prosecutors said they didn’t oppose the request.
Defense attorneys contend the case should be heard in Mahoning County. Most of the 83 criminal counts in the May 14 indictment purportedly occurred in Mahoning County, though there are some that purportedly happened in Cuyahoga County.
Mark Lavelle, attorney for Martin Yavorcik, the other defendant in this case, didn’t file an objection to the location of the case.
Yavorcik, a failed 2008 Mahoning County prosecutor candidate who ran as an independent, along with Sciortino and McNally, when he was a county commissioner, are accused of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, perjury, money laundering and tampering with records.
The three have pleaded not guilty.
The indictment accuses McNally and Sciortino of receiving benefits for opposing the relocation of the Mahoning County Job and Family Services office at Garland Plaza, owned by the Cafaro Co., in Youngstown to Oakhill Renaissance Place, also in Youngstown.
The indictment accused Yavorcik of accepting money from a businessman, believed to be Anthony Cafaro Sr., former president of the Cafaro Co., in exchange for agreeing not to prosecute members of the enterprise if he were elected prosecutor.