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Two arrested in cases involving businesses on Seventy-Six Drive
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Two people were arrested in separate cases involving Austintown businesses on Seventy-Six Drive.
Grace L. Sciarra of Leavittsburg was secretly indicted by a Mahoning County grand jury Aug. 20 on charges of promoting prostitution, a fourth-degree felony; money laundering, a third-degree felony; and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, a second-degree felony; online court records said.
She was arrested Wednesday after a warrant was issued Aug. 20, and her bond was set at $50,000 cash or surety. She will be arraigned at 9 a.m. Tuesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
Austintown Detective Lt. Jeff Solic, commander of the Mahoning Valley Law Enforcement Task Force, explained that Sciarra is the only person charged so far in the ongoing investigation. The purported activity occurred at 76 Spa on 76 Drive, which was the township’s only remaining massage parlor.
“Our undercover operative gathered evidence ... and heard that Grace [Sciarra] was the holder of the business license at that time, so she had an interest in the brothel,” Solic said.
According to Vindicator files, Austintown trustees gave a first reading June 23, 2014, to minor changes for massage parlors in the township. At that time, Solic said no arrests had been made, but an undercover officer found violations a few weeks before that meeting.
Township officials in July 2014 approved the change to massage-parlor rules – regulations for signs and locations of the parlors to be governed by state law. At that time, zoning inspector Darren Crivelli said the last massage parlor, 76 Spa, had closed voluntarily after a police raid.
“As far as the illegal activity taking place at the business or going on inside the business, we hope every business is operating on the up and up and is a legal and legitimate business,” Solic said. “Historically, those [health] spas have always been a magnet for illegal activity.”
Solic continued: “Once businesses are allowed to open, unfortunately it’s upon the police department to make sure” they are operating legally.
About the same time in June 2014, four locations were searched in connection with Internet cafes giving cash payouts in violation of state law. Those were Internet Palace, 5523 Mahoning Ave.; Gold Strike Cafe, 5335 Seventy-Six Drive, next door to the massage parlor; Club 76 on Seventy-Six Drive, in the same strip mall; and a residence of one of the cafe owners in North Jackson.
Anthony J. Beshara, of Devonshire Drive in Boardman, was charged Monday in Mahoning County Area Court with misdemeanor gambling for the operations at Gold Strike Cafe, Solic said.
That charge is because Beshara was “operating the Internet cafe there with gambling taking place on the premises,” Solic said.
Leber Real Estate LTD owns 5335 Seventy-Six Drive, the Gold Strike Cafe, as well as 5325 Seventy-Six Drive, where the spa is located, according to the Mahoning County Auditor’s Office. It was incorporated by Beshara for 5335 Seventy-Six Drive effective Aug. 21, 2001, according to the Ohio Secretary of State records.