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The Oakhill criminal corruption case has a March 1, 2016, trial date
CLEVELAND
The judge in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case set a trial date for March 1, 2016, about 22 months after the three defendants were indicted and more than a decade after the purported crimes supposedly started.
Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court had a brief pretrial hearing Monday with attorneys representing the prosecution and the defendants — Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and failed 2008 independent county prosecutor candidate Martin Yavorcik.
At Monday’s hearing, the first since Dec. 22, the judge set the trial date.
The date was confirmed by Dan Tierney, spokesman for the Ohio attorney general. The AG and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s offices are the prosecutors on this case.
Mark Lavelle, attorney for Yavorcik, declined to comment Monday. Attempts by The Vindicator to reach Lynn A. Maro and John B. Juhasz, who represent McNally and Sciortino, respectively, were unsuccessful Monday.
A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted McNally, Sciortino — both Democrats — and Yavorcik on May 14, 2014, on 83 criminal counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, 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, owned by the county.
Cafaro received $440,000 a year in rent from the county to house JFS, and it was relocated by county commissioners “because of the poor condition of the building and other issues,” according to prosecutors.
The enterprise, which included numerous others who aren’t indicted, also wanted to get Yavorcik elected prosecutor in 2008 to make a criminal investigation into the matter go away, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors say the criminal enterprise began Jan. 3, 2005, when McNally was sworn in as a Mahoning County commissioner and spoke with Anthony Cafaro Sr., then president of the Cafaro Co., to discuss the possible relocation of JFS.
Also Monday, prosecutors filed a brief in opposition to a motion from Maro and Juhasz to have Judge Burnside dismiss the case, contending Cuyahoga County isn’t the proper venue to hear this matter.
Prosecutors contend the defendants committed criminal acts in Mahoning, Cuyahoga, Trumbull, Geauga and Franklin counties, and only one element of a single offense is needed to have Cuyahoga be the appropriate venue.
“The Cuyahoga County grand jury was within its right to indict McNally and Sciortino for offenses committed entirely outside Cuyahoga County as long as those offenses are part of a course of conduct with other offenses that took place at least in part inside Cuyahoga County,” wrote Christopher Schroeder, an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecuting attorney.
He added, “The indictment in this case alleges that venue lies in Cuyahoga County. Count 1 of the indictment begins by alleging that the offense occurred ‘in the county of Cuyahoga.’” He added that 61 allegations of events, including 43 instances of corrupt activity, happened in Cuyahoga County.