Sunday Vindicator to provide Oakhill corruption case primer

YOUNGSTOWN

On his first day as Mahoning County commissioner, John A. McNally met with Anthony Cafaro Sr. to discuss the possible relocation of a county department housed in a Cafaro Co.-owned building.

That Jan. 3, 2005, meeting is considered by prosecutors to be the start of a criminal conspiracy to stop or impede the relocation of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services from Garland Plaza, owned by the Cafaro Co., to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.

At that initial meeting, McNally agreed to keep the businessman advised of what was happening with JFS, based on Cafaro’s handwritten notes that were turned over to prosecutors as evidence.

After that meeting, prosecutors contend the two discussed the JFS issue numerous times over the next few years.

Prosecutors also allege other public officials, Cafaro’s brother and sister, and attorneys conspired to break the law to stop the JFS relocation.

That includes, prosecutors contend, lying under oath about the extent of their involvement, accepting or giving bribes, and illegally funding the campaign of a county prosecutor candidate to make an investigation against them go away.

The indictment calls McNally, a Democrat, the “organizer and leader of the public officials.” McNally has said, “Descriptions like that, to me, are comical.”

The Ohio Attorney General’s office and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office unsealed an indictment May 14, 2014, charging McNally, Youngstown’s mayor, but in his capacity as a county commissioner; outgoing county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino; and attorney Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor, on 83 criminal counts. The charges include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, perjury, conspiracy, money laundering and tampering with records.

The three have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

That indictment, a bill of particulars filed June 12, 2014, and a notice of intent to use evidence filed Jan. 8 all provide an outline for what prosecutors will use against the three defendants if the case goes to trial and paint a more complete picture of the alleged criminal enterprise.

But the case details and the reporting of it over the past eight months have been released in increments.

In Sunday's Vindicator and on Vindy.com, you can read a narrative composed from those documents and Vindicator reporting arranged chronologically to provide a primer of the case called “Oakhill.”