43
Oakhill defendants’ witness lists include press, public officials
Sciortino, McNally Potential Witness Lists
Document
Sciortino, McNally Potential Witness Lists
CLEVELAND
Current and former Mahoning County public officials, Vindicator reporters and editors, and a number of people on the prosecutor’s list are among those named as potential witnesses by the three defendants in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case.
The 68 names on the potential witness lists submitted by Lynn Maro and John B. Juhasz, the attorneys for Oakhill defendants Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, respectively, are identical.
The list from Mark Lavelle, attorney for Martin Yavorcik, the other defendant, had 31 names, including some named by lawyers for McNally and Sciortino.
The prosecutor’s list of potential witnesses, filed with the Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts in late October, has 86 names, five keepers of records at banks and the keeper of records at U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Meanwhile, the judge in Sciortino’s Mahoning County case granted a request from Juhasz to postpone a separate criminal case against his client until April 25. It was supposed to start Jan. 11. The Oakhill case in Cuyahoga County is scheduled to begin March 1.
Former and current Mahoning County officials on the defense lists as potential witnesses include Prosecutor Paul J. Gains; Linette Stratford, chief assistant prosecutor; ex-Treasurer Lisa Antonini, also a former Democratic Party chairwoman; ex-Commissioners David N. Ludt and Edward J. Reese; Commissioner Anthony Traficanti; ex-Sheriff Randall Wellington; Youngstown Health Commissioner Erin Bishop; James Fortunato, director of purchasing; Clerk of Courts Anthony Vivo; Judge Theresa Dellick of the county’s juvenile court; former Probate Court Judge Timothy P. Maloney; Common Pleas Court Judges R. Scott Krichbaum, John M. Durkin and Maureen A. Sweeney; Maureen A. Cronin and Timothy Franken, former common pleas court judges; Domestic Relations Court Judge Beth A. Smith; ex-Youngstown Mayor George A. McKelvey, also a former county treasurer; Joe Caruso, former special projects director; ex-Treasurer John Reardon; Michael Morley, former Democratic Party chairman and ex-board of elections member; Mark Munroe, board of elections chairman and Republican Party chairman; Thomas McCabe, board of elections deputy director; Joyce Kale-Pesta, board of elections director, Robert Wasko, board of elections member; and ex-state Rep. Ronald V. Gerberry.
Also on the list are U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, Trumbull County Clerk of Courts Karen Infante Allen and Franklin County Clerk of Courts Maryellen O’Shaughnessy as well as state Rep. Michael O’Brien, a former Warren mayor.
Of the three defendants, McNally, a former Mahoning County commissioner, is on all three potential witness lists. Sciortino is on Yavorcik’s potential witness list.
Those who work for The Vindicator on the witness list are: David Skolnick, politics writer and columnist, and lead reporter on the Oakhill case; Peter H. Milliken, county and courts reporter, and lead reporter on the first Oakhill case that was dismissed in 2011; Editor Todd Franko, who also is a columnist; and Bertram de Souza, editorial page editor and columnist. Also Louie Free, host of Vindy Radio, is a potential witness.
Gains, Stratford, Antonini, Ludt, Traficanti, Vivo, McKelvey, Reardon, McCabe, Kale-Pesta and Gerberry are among those on the potential witness lists for the prosecutors and defendants.
Also on both lists are Anthony M. Cafaro Sr., the retired head of the Cafaro Co. and considered by prosecutors to be the head of the alleged Oakhill criminal enterprise; J.J. Cafaro, his brother; Flora Cafaro, his sister; ex-attorney Richard Goldberg; attorneys Melissa Macejko and Alan Kretzer; Kurt Welsh, a former board of elections employee; Lorain County Prosecutor Dennis Will, a special prosecutor in the first Oakhill case; Paul Nick, head of the Ohio Ethics Commission and a special prosecutor in the first Oakhill case; FBI Special Agent Deane Hassman, who’s investigated Mahoning Valley political corruption for the past 20 years; and Andrew W. Suhar, a bankruptcy trustee involved in the Oakhill bankruptcy case.
Attorneys for McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, had to turn over evidence by Monday to prosecutors they may use in the case.
Yavorcik’s potential documents include campaign checks and filings for his failed 2008 independent bid for county prosecutor; his 2008 tax return and amended returns; recorded conversations; his bankruptcy documents; photos of his home and law office; all Vindicator articles on the investigation and cases; Vindy.com blog posts; federal elections crime manual; U.S. attorney manual; and U.S. Department of Justice confidential informants regulations.
The three defendants have pleaded not guilty to a total of 83 criminal counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering.
They are accused of being part of a criminal enterprise that is alleged to have illegally tried to stop or impede the relocation of the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Service from a plaza owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
Also, Patricia A. Cosgrove, the visiting judge in Sciortino’s Mahoning County case, who agreed to move the starting date of the trial, also moved the final pretrial date to April 11.
Juhasz had requested the trial be postponed at least 90 days because of unforeseen developments in other criminal cases he is handling.
Sciortino has pleaded not guilty to 25 felony counts. Prosecutors say he and three auditor employees at his direction illegally used county computers and software more than 300 times for political purposes to keep him in office and for his private law practice and music/DJ business between Oct. 6, 2005, and Aug. 29, 2012.
Dan Tierney, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the lead prosecutor in the cases, said, “We don’t have an objection [to the postponement]. We want to try this once. We want to make sure there are no grounds for appeal. Theoretically, the denial of a postponement would have been appealable. We’re confident we’ll win.”