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Oakhill prosecutors plan to use records related to cost of moving county agency
CLEVELAND
Prosecutors in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case say they plan to use records related to the cost of moving a Mahoning County agency to that location, other documents and videotaped interviews as evidence.
The court filing states the records are related to the move from the former Garland Plaza, owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, to Oakhill. The only county agency to make that move is the county Job and Family Services agency.
An indictment contends Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, in his capacity as a county commissioner, county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and attorney Martin Yavorcik, among others, were part of a conspiracy to keep JFS from moving from the Cafaro Co.-owned location on Youngstown’s East Side to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
The three were indicted in May on 83 criminal counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, perjury, money laundering and tampering with records.
McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, and Yavorcik, an independent who unsuccessfully ran in 2008 for county prosecutor, have pleaded not guilty and insist they’ve done nothing illegal.
The indictment and bill of particulars contend McNally and Sciortino received benefits for opposing the relocation. Yavorcik is accused of accepting money from a businessman, Sciortino, McNally and others, and in exchange agreed not to investigate or prosecute members of the enterprise if he was elected county prosecutor in 2008.
Daniel Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general and this case’s special prosecutor, listed seven items of evidence to be turned over to the defendants in a court filing.
The other evidence listed in the filing from Kasaris includes excerpts on Vindy.com of Sciortino’s recent videotaped endorsement interview with The Vindicator, and an interview he gave to a local television station after being told by a Vindicator reporter he was indicted.
Also on the list are “arrangements that the government had made with three witnesses,” “interviews conducted with additional witnesses,” and a “request for production of documents made by parties” in the failed lawsuit filed by Ohio Valley Mall, the Cafaro Co. subsidiary, against Mahoning County commissioners in 2006 to rescind the purchase of Oakhill.
The final item is emails from Craig Miller, whose Cleveland firm, Ulmer & Berne, represented Ohio Valley in that case, “containing confidential information.” The firm has denied any wrongdoing by any of its lawyers.
Prosecutors last week said they had about 700 hours of secretly recorded conversations made by confidential sources, recorded phone calls and in-person meetings over a five-year period it may use as evidence.
The state provided 576 hours of those tapes to the defendants on or about Aug. 13.
The latest filing said the state is processing about 30 recordings made by a confidential source, and will provide summaries of those recordings to the defendants when they are done.