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The Oakhill judge told prosecutors to eliminate some of the 83 counts against the three defendants
CLEVELAND
The judge handling the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption trial told prosecutors to eliminate some of the 83 counts facing the three defendants as part of her effort to “streamline the case.”
In a court journal entry, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court told prosecutors to get rid of some of the counts and also amend certain paragraphs of the criminal count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
That work is to be done by a Jan. 15 pretrial hearing, according to her journal entry.
The judge, however, didn’t specify how many counts she wants them to cut from the indictment that was unsealed May 14, 2014. The case is scheduled to start March 1.
Judge Burnside told The Vindicator on Friday after a pretrial hearing that she wants attorneys on both sides to “streamline the case” so it moves at a steady pace, saying she’s “always concerned jurors will lose interest or we’ll torture them” with a lengthy trial.
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and attorney Martin Yavorcik face 83 criminal counts combined, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury, money laundering, tampering with records, soliciting or receiving improper compensation, telecommunications fraud, theft in office, disclosing confidential information and ethics violations. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
The unlawful compensation, disclosing confidential information and ethics violations are misdemeanors. The rest are felonies.
The judge’s order is “consistent with streamlining the case,” said Dan Tierney, spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, the case’s lead prosecutor. “It’s not uncommon in a multicount corruption case. We intend to work with the judge to streamline the case and start it on time.”
McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, and Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, are accused of being part of a criminal enterprise to stop or impede the relocation of a county agency from a building owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county. The indictment contends the three benefited from being involved in the alleged enterprise.
The judge also told The Vindicator the authenticity of nearly all the large amount of evidence in this case isn’t in dispute, so a computer system making the documents visible to everyone could speed up the trial.
By agreeing to the authenticity, it “would eliminate the need for certain other witnesses to be called to testify,” she wrote.
In a separate journal entry, Judge Burnside again denied a motion from McNally and Sciortino to dismiss the case on the contention Cuyahoga County isn’t the proper venue for the trial.
The judge rejected a similar motion from the attorneys for McNally and Sciortino, and another from Yavorcik’s lawyer earlier this year.
The judge wrote the court can’t require prosecutors to establish proof of venue before the trial starts.
“If the state can prove a course of conduct occurring in Cuyahoga County, then this county is proper venue for out-of-county offenses – for our purposes, those occurring in Mahoning County and other Ohio counties,” Judge Burnside wrote. “If it is proven that such offenses are part of the same course of conduct occurring in Cuyahoga County,” there isn’t an issue.