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McNally, Sciortino seek dismissal of indictment because of trial venue
CLEVELAND
Attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino are asking a judge to dismiss the criminal-corruption indictment against their clients, contending Cuyahoga County is the improper venue to hear the case.
“A trial in Cuyahoga County would deny these defendants the substantive right, guaranteed by the Ohio Constitution, to a jury drawn and selected from the county in which the offenses are said to have occurred,” wrote Lynn A. Maro, who represents McNally, and John B. Juhasz, who represents Sciortino, in a Friday motion seeking to dismiss the indictment.
The two Democrats, along with attorney Martin Yavorcik, were indicted May 14, 2014, by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on 83 counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, perjury and money laundering. The three have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors contend the three were part of a criminal enterprise that illegally — and unsuccessfully — tried to impede or stop the move of the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services from the Cafaro Co.-owned Garland Plaza to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
The enterprise also wanted to get Yavorcik elected prosecutor — he unsuccessfully ran for the office in 2008 as an independent — to make a criminal investigation into the matter go away, prosecutors allege.
The indictment contends the purported criminal activities occurred in Mahoning, Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Geauga and Franklin counties. Most of the charges stem from alleged criminal acts in Mahoning County.
Prosecutors contend only one element of a single offense is needed to have occurred in Cuyahoga County for it to be the appropriate venue for this case.
“We will review the filing, but we obviously believe there’s probable cause for the indictments and the venue is appropriate,” said Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting this case with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.
In Friday’s filing, Maro and Juhasz wrote: “The government’s claim appears to be that because of the actions of certain lawyers in Cuyahoga County, there is a legal basis to charge and try these defendants in Cuyahoga County. However, those lawyers did not act on behalf of, or as agents of, these defendants. Accordingly, the nexus that the law requires to exist between these defendants and Cuyahoga County in order for trial in Cuyahoga County to be a legal one is simply lacking.”
The defense attorneys also wrote that “not one element of the offenses charged occurred in Cuyahoga County,” and “the attorney general is not entitled to select where he wants to pursue the case and where it is most convenient for” his office.
Later in the 26-page motion, Maro and Juhasz wrote that “with the exception of two counts of telecommunications fraud that apply only to John McNally and which the law says may be tried in either the county where the call or transmission originated or ended, all of the offenses that are said to have occurred as regards these two defendants, McNally and Sciortino, took place in Mahoning County.”
The two wrote the “only thing tying any of these events to Cuyahoga County is the law offices of Businessman 1’s lawyers were located there. But these lawyers were not agents of these defendants.”
Businessman 1 is Anthony Cafaro Sr., the former president of his family-owned company.
The case is being heard by Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for April 13. It isn’t known if this issue will be considered at that hearing.
The judge originally had given defense attorneys until March 2 to challenge the trial location. But she granted Maro and Juhasz an extension to Friday because they were defense attorneys in a federal trial in Cleveland that took up their time. That matter resulted in a mistrial with prosecutors expected to refile charges.
Mark Lavelle, Yavorcik’s attorney, didn’t file a motion with the court either by March 2 or by Friday objecting to Cuyahoga County being the proper venue for the case.