Sciortino admits alcohol issues, rehab

By DAVID SKOLNICK

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Michael Sciortino

Video Set

Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, running for re-election, said he checked into an alcohol addiction rehab facility the day he was indicted on 22 criminal counts related to allegations of political corruption.

“To be honest, I hadn’t been in my right frame of mind for a lot of years with regard to dealing with” alcohol, Sciortino told The Vindicator in response to questions about problems he’s had with alcohol abuse.

Sciortino, a Democrat, declined to discuss specifics of his treatment, including where he received it.

“I spent some time there that I’d like to keep private,” he said. “I met a great group of people and a support group. It’s a good thing.”

Treating his addiction is “an ongoing process,” Sciortino said. “It’s not something you put an end date on. I’m tackling something a lot of people are going through. It takes some very bad situations to turn into something good.”

Sciortino faces Republican Ralph Meacham in the Nov. 4 election.

Sciortino’s alcohol issue went public shortly after it was learned he was pulled over May 26, 2013, in Canfield Township by Sgt. James Touville of the county sheriff’s office.

Touville stopped Sciortino on suspicion of driving under the influence. About an hour earlier, police received a call from an employee of a Wendy’s restaurant, close to where Sciortino was pulled over, about a man asleep in a car that turned out to be the auditor’s.

Touville cuffed Sciortino and put him in a patrol car. The officer then called his supervisor, who called his supervisor, Maj. Jeffrey Allen, who called T.J. Assion, then a commander, who came to the scene. Assion, who drove Sciortino home, told Summit County sheriff officials, who investigated the incident, that “his sole purpose” was to get “Sciortino out of a DUI” and that the auditor is “a good friend of his.”

The fallout led to Assion’s being demoted to his previous rank of sergeant, which included a $19,000 annual pay cut, while Allen and Touville were suspended without pay for 10 and three days, respectively.

Sciortino emailed prepared statements to the media July 3, 2013, and Oct. 24, 2013, apologizing for the incident but not mentioning the role alcohol had played. He spoke with a Vindicator reporter about the traffic stop for the first time Feb. 14.

But Sciortino expanded on it Monday and Tuesday, and for the first time said he’s receiving alcohol-

addiction treatment.

“That night will be a night that I regret for as long as I live,” Sciortino said.

“I made so many bad decisions that night,” he added. “I was drinking and combining that with some medication. I did not make the right decisions. I should not have been driving.”

Sciortino said, “I was in no shape to drive,” and the decision to do so was “a horrible mistake.”

When a Vindicator editor suggested Sciortino is “lucky” as he avoided criminal charges during the traffic stop as well as a first corruption indictment was dismissed in 2011, Sciortino became emotional.

“As far as being lucky, I think my wife and kids would feel otherwise because we’ve been through a lot; we really have,” said Sciortino, who paused a few times. “I don’t think we’ve been lucky.”

The 2011 dismissal came after the FBI revealed it had about 2,000 hours of surveillance video of at least one of the defendants in the state case and wouldn’t turn the video over. The case was dismissed with the opportunity to re-file it later.

On May 14, Sciortino, Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, also a Democrat, and attorney Martin Yavorcik, an independent, were again indicted, this time on 83 total counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, perjury, bribery, money laundering and tampering with records.

The three have pleaded not guilty.

They were indicted in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court for what prosecutors say was their roles in illegally trying to impede the move of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services to Oakhill Renaissance Place from Garland Plaza, owned by the Cafaro Co. McNally was a county commissioner at that time.