Thursday, August 20, 2015
Document
Affidavit for search warrant of the Mahoning County Computer Network location.
YOUNGSTOWN
Unsealed affidavits in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case contain explosive allegations that retired businessman Anthony Cafaro Sr. sought to have people donate money to candidate campaigns, and then he would reimburse them.
The same affidavits also disclose that ex-county Probate Court Judge Mark Belinky, convicted last year of tampering with records, admitted to other criminal acts.
The affidavits from Ed Carlini, a special agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, were used last September to obtain search warrants from Youngstown Municipal Court Judge Elizabeth A. Kobly to seize computers, computer disks and software from then-county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, a Democrat and one of the three Oakhill defendants.
Four Carlini affidavits were unsealed recently in Youngstown Municipal Court with copies obtained Wednesday by The Vindicator.
Belinky “admitted to stealing money from people that he was a guardian over and further has admitted to altering probate court documents to further such theft and has further admitted to using a Mahoning County probate computer to create false probate court records,” according to two of Carlini’s affidavits.
Cafaro, the former head of his family owned retail- development business, hasn’t been criminally charged. But the Oakhill indictment, which refers to him as “Businessman 1,” claims he tried to give cash to one candidate in 2008 and made contributions in the names of other people to another candidate in 2006.
The documents state that businessman Bruce Zoldan testified twice in front of the Oakhill grand jury that Cafaro offered to reimburse him for political donations.
Zoldan told the grand jury that Cafaro offered to reimburse him for a donation in 2010 made to Carol Rimedio-Righetti, a Democrat who was elected county commissioner that year, according to the affidavits. Cafaro also offered to do the same for Zoldan, the affidavits state, for a donation in 2008 to Martin Yavorcik, a failed independent candidate for county prosecutor that year and one of the Oakhill defendants.
In a Wednesday interview with The Vindicator, Zoldan confirmed that Cafaro made the offers and he rejected both.
Zoldan said he didn’t contribute money to Yavorcik because he was backing incumbent Democratic Paul J. Gains in that 2008 race.
As for Rimedio-Righetti, Zoldan said Cafaro was going to write a check to him and he would then write one to her with his and Cafaro’s donations. Zoldan said if that happened, he was going to tell her what portion came from him and Cafaro.
“I mentioned to [Rimedio-Righetti] that [Cafaro] offered it, but it never happened,” Zoldan said. Cafaro “did not say, ‘I want to give you cash.’ He was going to write a check.”
Zoldan added he didn’t consider the request unusual and didn’t believe the offers involved “criminal intent.”
“The last thing I’d be involved with is to help someone violate election laws,” he said, adding that no laws would have been broken as long as he, Cafaro and Rimedio-Righetti reported the transactions.
Campaign-finance records show Bruce and Rori Zoldan gave Rimedio-Righetti’s election committee $3,000 on March 22, 2010, and $10,000 on April 26, 2010.
State law considers it a crime for anyone to “knowingly conceal or misrepresent contributions given or received, expenditures made, or any other information required to be reported.”
The affidavits said a confidential informant “reliable to both federal and state law enforcement agencies for a number of years” provided information that Cafaro used others to donate money to Rimedio-Righetti when she ran in 2010 against then-Commissioner David Ludt, “a political enemy of Anthony Cafaro,” and that Rimedio-Righetti, who beat Ludt in the Democratic primary, “has admitted such to persons in the Mahoning County government.”
The affidavits also state that J.J. Cafaro, Anthony Sr.’s brother and a former Cafaro Co. executive, was asked in front of a grand jury about his brother’s request to Zoldan. He stated his brother must have told Rimedio-Righetti about it.
The same informant said Rimedio-Righetti and Carol McFall, chief deputy to ex-county auditor Sciortino, talked about Cafaro reimbursing people to donate to Rimedio-Righetti’s campaign. McFall is cooperating with prosecutors, according to a source close to the investigation.
When asked by The Vindicator to comment, Rimedio-Righetti said: “I can’t believe this. I’ve never heard of this. I never talked to Carol McFall about contributions. I have no idea where this is coming from. I have no comment at this point. I need to talk to my lawyer. I have no idea about any of this. It’s ridiculous.”
Damian Billak, Rimedio-Righetti’s attorney, said: “Carol has always denied that she did anything unlawful. She has nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes, confidential informants are proven to be untrustworthy when cross-examined under oath.”
At his request, The Vindicator provided documents to John McCaffrey, Cafaro’s attorney, in order to seek comment. But McCaffrey declined Wednesday to return numerous telephone calls from the newspaper.
Rimedio-Righetti has not been charged with a crime.
Also revealed publicly for the first time are details of Belinky’s wrongdoing.
Belinky, a Democrat, resigned as probate court judge in March 2014 and pleaded guilty to tampering with records two months later related to failing to report contributions, expenditures and loans to his campaign fund in 2008. The ex-judge was allowed to plead to the one offense because he’s cooperating with those investigating other public-corruption matters.
The unsealed document states Belinky admitted to crimes “separate and apart” from his lone conviction.
The affidavit states Belinky admitted to stealing money from people he was guardian over, altered and created fake probate court documents in part to hide his thefts, and used his employees and county property – including computers – for political purposes.
Calls from the newspaper Wednesday to Belinky and J. Gerald Ingram, his attorney, seeking comment weren’t returned.
The affidavits also reveal the locations where the warrants were executed: the auditor’s office at the county courthouse; the county’s information-technologies department, which the auditor oversees, at the administration building; and the county’s computer-network facility at Oakhill Renaissance Place. BCI agents also seized three county-owned computers and software from Sciortino’s Austintown home.
The documents found on those seized computers led prosecutors to charge Sciortino with 25 felonies in Mahoning County contending he and three auditor employees at his direction illegally used the county-owned property more than 300 times to raise money for political purposes to keep him in office and his private law practice.
The computers were taken as part of the Oakhill investigation in Cuyahoga County.
That case accuses Sciortino, Yavorcik and Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, a Democrat in his previous capacity as Mahoning County commissioner, of being part of a criminal enterprise that illegally, and unsuccessfully, tried to impede or stop the move of the county Department of Job and Family Services from the Cafaro Co.-owned Garland Plaza to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
Ohio Valley Mall, a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, received $440,000 a year in rent from the county to house JFS.
McNally, Sciortino and Yavorcik are charged with 83 combined counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
The unsealed affidavits contend McNally, Sciortino and Cafaro “lied under oath” during depositions about Cafaro and his brother, J.J., authorizing attorneys for the Cafaro Co. to do legal work for the two politicians.
The documents also state McNally and Sciortino were required to turn over emails and other correspondence between them and the Cafaro Co., its attorneys and officers, and withheld some.