Dispute over Oakhill tapes heads to hearing

CLEVELAND — Defense attorneys in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case who contend prosecutors are withholding about 1,300 hours of secretly-recorded tapes will get a court hearing Sept. 21 to resolve the matter.

The date was set by Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the case, after a pretrial hearing today with prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The amount of taped evidence has been a long-standing dispute between the two sides.

Defense attorneys have contended that there are 2,000 hours of secretly recorded tapes while prosecutors say the number is 700 hours, and all of them have been given to the defense.

The first Oakhill case was dismissed in July 2011 at the request of prosecutors because not all evidence could be provided to defendants. Specifically, the evidence was what prosecutors in that case said was “approximately 2,000 hours of tape recordings” in the possession of the FBI, and that agency wouldn’t provide it.

Since then, the FBI gave about 700 hours of recordings to prosecutors, leading to the second indictment on May 14, 2014.

Prosecutors have repeatedly said there are only 700 hours and the 2,000-hour statement was “off the cuff."

For the complete story, read Thursday's Vindicator and Vindy.com