Cafaro's handwritten notes likely to be part of Oakhill conspiracy trial

YOUNGSTOWN

More than 200 handwritten notes by Anthony Cafaro

Sr. about meetings and telephone conversations the businessman had with Mahoning County officials in an effort to stop the purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place are among the evidence prosecutors may use in a criminal conspiracy case.

A 100-page “notice of intent to use evidence” document, filed Thursday with the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas’ clerk of court office by prosecutors, outlines what they contend was coordinated corruption between Cafaro and certain officials.

Among the thousands of pieces of evidence prosecutors may use against two of three defendants in the Oakhill

case — Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, both Democrats — are those notes of meetings Cafaro had with them.

Details of many of the meetings aren’t disclosed. Others are primarily about how to stop or impede the county from moving the Department of Job and Family Services from the Cafaro-Co.-owned Garland Plaza on the East Side to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.

Among the documents is one given to Cafaro on July 12, 2006, by McNally with the “confidential terms” of the county’s purchase of Oakhill.

There are no Cafaro notes of any meetings or discussions with the case’s third defendant, Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 county prosecutor candidate who ran as an independent. Earlier filings by prosecutors, however, show the case against Yavorcik likely rests with secret tape recordings of him talking with confidential informants.

Cafaro, an alleged unindicted co-conspirator in the case previously identified as “Businessman 1,” took notes of meetings and phone conversations he had with not only McNally and Sciortino, but with John Zachariah, the former JFS director; Lisa Antonini, a former county Democratic Party chairwoman and county treasurer; and John Reardon, a former county treasurer. The notes indicate those talks were also about stopping the county from moving JFS from the Cafaro Co. property to Oakhill on the South Side.

Read more about the investigation and evidence in Sunday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.