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Probe of Niles city government puts Mayor Infante in spotlight
On the side
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, a Republican seeking re-election next year, will have a fundraiser from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday at the Tippecanoe Country Club in Canfield. Tickets are $500, $1,350 and $2,700. Portman will face the winner of the Democratic primary in March between ex-Gov. Ted Strickland and Cincinnati Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld in the November 2016 general election.
On Sunday, Portman will receive an honorary degree and speak at Youngstown State University’s fall commencement, which starts at 2 p.m.
Meanwhile, state Rep. John Boccieri of Poland, D-59th, appointed to the House on Sept. 30, finally received his committee assignments Tuesday.
Boccieri will serve on the energy and natural resources, and the public utilities committees.
“Both of my committees deal with issues that have a significant impact on consumer welfare and the economic future of our state,” Boccieri said. “I am excited to begin the important work of hearing legislation in these areas.”
He filed nominating petitions Thursday for a full two-year term.
The relationship between Niles Mayor Ralph A. Infante and the Cafaro Co. – particularly with Anthony M. Cafaro Sr., the now retired head of his family real-estate development business – has been a long and cozy one.
Based on the appointment Tuesday of a special prosecutor to investigate “alleged illegal activity” in Niles “involving government officials and others,” that relationship was perhaps too cozy.
The words quoted came from a judgment entry from Judge Andrew D. Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court who approved a request by county Prosecutor Dennis Watkins to appoint Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general, as special prosecutor.
The investigation includes but is “not limited to theft in office, tampering with records, falsification and dereliction of duty,” Judge Logan’s entry reads.
A source close to the investigation confirmed the Cafaro Co. and Infante, who lost a re-election bid after 24 years as mayor, are subjects of the investigation.
When Kasaris is appointed, things are likely serious.
He prosecuted ex-Mahoning County Probate Court Judge Mark Belinky last year for tampering with records.
Kasaris prosecuted ex-state Rep. Peter Beck of Warren County on securities violations, perjury and theft earlier this year. Beck, the former Ohio House Ways and Means Committee chairman, was sentenced to four years in prison.
He is also the lead prosecutor on the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case with Cafaro and his company being unindicted co-conspirators in that matter.
Kasaris is also prosecuting former Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, one of the three defendants in the Oak-hill case, on 25 felonies accusing him and three employees at his direction of illegally using county-owned computers and other property.
As for Infante and the Cafaro Co., that close relationship makes perfect sense from the standpoint of business and government.
The company owns the gigantic Eastwood Mall complex, Niles’ largest employer and the core of its tax base. The company will move its corporate headquarters to the city next year, is building its second hotel at the complex and has made numerous other improvements and additions to the property. It also owns more than 100 nearby acres for even more growth.
There’s a lot of money from the city’s 1.5 percent income tax to be collected from those working at the mall as well as from construction workers.
Yet Niles was placed in fiscal emergency in October 2014 by the Ohio Auditor’s Office, and voters rejected a 0.25 percent income-tax increase last month. Amazingly, this is the second time Niles has been in fiscal emergency with the first time coming about 30 years ago.
Tim Linter, the state-appointed city’s financial supervisor, and Mary Ann Coates, a certified public accountant and member of the Niles Financial Planning and Supervision Commission, last month questioned the amount of income tax collected at the mall. Both said the amounts are too small.
The criminal investigation came after search warrants were executed a week ago at Niles city hall and the Cafaro Co. headquarters in Youngstown.
The warrant at city hall was executed by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation – which is part of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office – as well as the Ohio Auditor’s Office and the FBI. The Cafaro seizure was done solely by BCI.
Officials with the attorney general and the auditor aren’t providing details, and the warrants are under seal.
The Cafaro Co. isn’t saying what was taken. It’s possible the search is related to Oakhill and/or what was taken in Niles.
Because Niles is subject to the state’s open-records law, The Vindicator got a copy from the city of the items taken from city hall.
Blueprints
The evidence receipt of items seized includes drawings and blueprints for the construction of the Cafaro Co. headquarters; the completed Residence Inn by Marriott and the Hampton Inn and Suites under construction, both at the mall complex; the Area Agency on Aging 11 office, also at the mall; and the Italian Marketplace in the former Alberini’s restaurant space on Youngstown-Warren Road.
The receipt also lists as taken a banker’s box containing city building department files for each of those construction projects, and that all the evidence is being kept by the auditor’s office.
Auditor investigators spent a couple of weeks looking at records in the zoning and building department earlier this year, and a week after Niles was put in fiscal emergency in October 2014, auditor investigators looked at records in Infante’s office.
At the time of the search, Infante dismissed it saying it’s “not a concern for me.”
It probably should be now.