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A witness list in the Oakhill criminal-corruption case will be provided by Friday
CLEVELAND
Prosecutors in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case will provide a witness list by Friday and all of its evidence to defendants by July 1.
That information was included in a journal entry from Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Janet R. Burnside, who is overseeing the case.
The deadlines were determined at a Friday pretrial hearing in Cleveland.
The two sides agreed to a protocol permitting defense witnesses to hear secret recordings, made by two confidential informants, and other material labeled by prosecutors as “counsel only.” That’s a legal term meaning defense attorneys can’t share it.
“The state’s express concern is” that it “may directly or indirectly result in harassment, intimidation, or potential harm” to informants, Judge Burnside wrote in a journal entry. “The defendants’ express concern is the ability to fully and fairly investigate and prepare the case.”
Before hearing or reading the “counsel only” evidence, people will be required to sign a “confidentiality notification and acknowledgement” document promising not to discuss it with others, Judge Burnside wrote in a court filing made available Monday.
After each witness or potential witness hears or reads evidence, the defendants’ attorneys will turn over the original copy of the signed document to her and she will make it part of the court’s public record at the conclusion of the trial, the judge wrote.
Attorneys for the defendants – Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and attorney Martin Yavorcik – had objected to the labeling, saying they couldn’t properly prepare their case if their witnesses couldn’t listen to recordings made by confidential sources.
McNally, in his capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner, as well as Sciortino and Yavorcik were indicted May 14, 2014, on 83 total criminal counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. The three have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors contend McNally, Sciortino – both Democrats – and Yavorcik were part of a criminal enterprise that illegally, and unsuccessfully, tried to impede or stop the move of the Mahoning 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 enterprise, which included numerous others who aren’t indicted, also wanted to elect Yavorcik prosecutor in 2008 as an independent candidate to make a criminal investigation into the matter go away, prosecutors allege.
Lynn Maro and John B. Juhasz, attorneys for McNally and Sciortino, respectively, once again brought up the number of hours of recordings made by confidential informants in this case.
In a Friday motion, the two asked the judge to order a hearing requiring prosecutors to turn over secret recordings they claim are being withheld, and for her to consider sanctions such as dismissing the case.
“They are simply grandstanding,” said Dan Tierney, an Ohio Attorney General’s Office spokesman, about Friday’s court motion from Maro and Juhasz.
The first Oakhill case was dismissed in July 2011 in Mahoning County when special prosecutors in that case said the FBI wouldn’t give them “approximately 2,000 hours of tape recordings” of at least one defendant and that the tapes were key pieces of evidence. Since then, the Federal Bureau of Investigation provided about 700 hours of recordings to prosecutors, leading to the second indictment. Prosecutors turned over those recordings – from Oct. 18, 2005, to Feb. 5, 2011 – to defense attorneys.
Prosecutors in this second Oakhill case say the 2,000 hours were an “off-the-cuff” estimate.
“We’ve been clear that we didn’t receive 2,000 hours,” Tierney said. Friday’s filing “is based on old information. They leave out the new information,” Tierney said. “We’ve received repeated assurances from the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office that we’ve received all of the recordings. It just happens their estimate was off.”
But Maro and Juhasz contend again in Friday’s filing that “the government is withholding at least 1,300 hours of audiotaped recordings,” and “it seems crystal clear that there are additional recordings, and the defendants are entitled to them.”
Prosecutors have said they have no tape recordings of McNally.
Meanwhile, today is Sciortino’s first pretrial hearing on 25 felonies accusing him of illegally using government-owned computers and software for his political campaigns and for his private law practice between Oct. 6, 2005, and Aug. 29, 2012.
Sciortino was indicted June 4 on 21 counts of unauthorized use of property – computer or telecommunication property – and four counts of theft in office. He pleaded not guilty last week.