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Trial date for ex-Mahoning County auditor is Aug. 3
YOUNGSTOWN
Ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino’s trial date is Aug. 3 to answer 25 felony charges accusing him of illegally using government-owned computers and software for his political campaigns and for his private law practice.
Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney arraigned Sciortino on Tuesday. The 45-year-old Austintown Democrat pleaded not guilty, was released on a $10,000 unsecured bond and went to the county jail to get fingerprinted and have his photo taken.
The case was assigned to Judge Shirley Christian, a common pleas court judge since Oct. 2, 2014. Gov. John Kasich appointed her to fill the unexpired term of James C. Evans, who retired early. The term expires Dec. 31, 2016.
Judge Christian hasn’t decided if she’s going to recuse herself from the case, according to her secretary.
After his arraignment, Sciortino declined to comment, saying he was saving his statements for the trial.
Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant attorney general prosecuting this case, declined to comment.
The first pretrial hearing to discuss evidence to be provided to Sciortino’s defense is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Based on previous cases – as well as the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case in Cuyahoga County involving Sciortino, Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and attorney Martin Yavorcik – the scheduled Aug. 3 start date to Sciortino’s trial is unlikely, with a later date expected.
Sciortino pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 21 counts of unauthorized use of property – computer or telecommunications property – and four counts of theft in office.
The indictment, unsealed June 4, alleges Sciortino improperly used public computers and software for campaign materials such as fundraiser tickets, invitations, thank-you letters and donation solicitations. The indictment doesn’t list specifics about his alleged improper use of the computers and software for his law practice. That information, and more details on his alleged use for his political campaigns, likely will be included in a bill of particulars during an evidence exchange.
The criminal conduct, according to the indictment, started Oct. 6, 2005, about three weeks after he became auditor, and ended Aug. 29, 2012. He was appointed auditor by the county Democratic Party on Sept. 14, 2005, to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of George Tablack. Sciortino successfully ran in 2006 for a four-year term, was re-elected in 2010, and – while under indictment for the Oakhill case – lost the November 2014 election to Republican Ralph Meacham.
Investigators became suspicious of Scortino’s computer use when, during the execution of a search warrant in Sept. 22, 2014, he said he wanted to keep a public computer overnight at his home and bring it to law enforcement the next day, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which is overseen by the AG’s office, refused the request.
When the computers and disks were seized, Sciortino said he was cooperating with BCI and the AG since his May 14, 2014, indictment on the Oakhill case. Dan Tierney, an attorney general spokesman, said at the time that Sciortino “gave them to us after some back and forth” with agents who were going into his house to retrieve the materials.
BCI cyber-crime agents removed numerous computers and 676 computer disks from Sciortino’s former office in the county courthouse, the county’s information-technologies department at the administrative building and the county’s computer-network facility at Oakhill. The agents also seized two county-owned laptops and a computer hard drive from Sciortino’s home.
The computers and disks were taken as part of the Oakhill investigation, but the recent indictment “is related to actions separate from” that case, Tierney said.
Sciortino also faces 22 criminal counts in the Oakhill case in Cuyahoga County. A grand jury accuses him along with McNally, a Democrat in his previous capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner, and Yavorcik, an unsuccessful 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor, of being part of a criminal enterprise.
The accusations are the three, and others, illegally – and unsuccessfully – tried to impede or stop the move of the county Department of Job and Family Services from the Cafaro Co.-owned Garland Plaza to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
The three have pleaded not guilty to the 83 total criminal counts that include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. That trial is scheduled to begin March 1, 2016.
That case is being prosecuted by the AG’s office – Kasaris is the lead prosecutor – and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.