43
Secretly-taped recordings at center of year-old Oakhill case
CLEVELAND
Secretly-taped recordings are to be key pieces of evidence in the Oakhill Renaissance Place corruption case.
The recordings are so important that special prosecutors in the first Oakhill case had the July 2010 indictments dismissed a year later when, they said, the FBI wouldn’t give them 2,000 hours of tapes of at least one defendant.
Since then, the feds provided about 700 hours of the recordings to prosecutors, leading to a second indictment May 14, 2014.
Thursday was the one-year anniversary of that indictment in Cuyahoga County. The trial is scheduled to begin March 1, 2016.
Prosecutors in the case have turned over the 700 hours of recordings to the attorneys for the three defendants: Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and failed 2008 county prosecutor independent candidate Martin Yavorcik.
So what happened to the other 1,300 hours?
Daniel Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general and lead prosecutor on this case, wrote in a court notice: “The state possesses approximately 700 hours of audio recordings made by more than one informant. There are not, nor does the state possess, 2,000 hours of recordings.”
The tapes were recorded by confidential informants between Oct. 18, 2005, and Feb. 5, 2011, with Yavorcik and Sciortino, a Democrat, among others, on the tapes, according to court records filed by prosecutors.
There are no recordings of McNally, a Democrat indicted in connection with purported criminal activity during his time as a county commissioner.
Dan Tierney, an AG spokesman, said, “We have turned over all those recordings, which are approximately 700 hours. We told defendants early on the 2,000 hours estimate was wrong and incorrect. The number is 700 hours. There were hundreds of recordings which may have contributed to the inaccurate count.”
But that hasn’t stopped John B. Juhasz and Lynn Maro, attorneys for Sciortino and McNally, respectively, from raising questions about the number of hours of secretly-recorded tapes.
Juhasz and Maro wrote in a motion: “The government has furnished all recording which it claims to have. The hours disclosed, which the government estimates to be around 700, is considerably less than what the government” said when this case was dismissed.
The attorneys added: “Though the number of hours has shrunk by some 1,300 hours, the government has now assured us – the defense and the court – that the original number was just an ‘off-the-cuff’ guess. Even more curious than the government’s wildly inaccurate estimate is the fact that some of the hours of recordings provided to the defense” are after the July 2010 indictment making the government’s “claim even more reckless than it appears at first blush.”
Prosecutors have made public transcripts of a small portion of those tapes with Yavorcik and Sciortino.
Transcripts contend Yavorcik discussed concealing campaign contributions from Anthony Cafaro Sr., referred to as Businessman 1 in the indictment, boasted that he was close friends with a judge contending he could fix a case and that Richard Goldberg, a disbarred attorney he worked with, could settle any personal-injury case.
He didn’t want Cafaro to contribute money “so it doesn’t look like I have any association with” him, and asked if taking money from any Cafaros “in this election is going to hurt me or not,” according to the transcript Yavorcik ended up taking $120,000 in total from Cafaro; his sister, Flora; and brother, J.J.
Yavorcik also spoke of his relationship with Goldberg, a disbarred attorney and close friend of Anthony Cafaro Sr.s, calling him his “secret weapon for personal-injury cases” and “he can get money out of insurance” companies, according to the transcript.
The transcript states Sciortino expressed concern about being indicted, that prosecutors were after Anthony Cafaro Sr. – whom he called “the Big C” – and “we are all collateral damage, I think.”
On Nov. 3, 2008, the day before he was re-elected, Sciortino asks the informant, “When we get out of jail can we work for” the Cafaro Co.
Sciortino then says, “What do you think I am doing, kidding? No fun. Tell me about it.”
Also made public are transcripts of taped conversations that same unidentified informant had with Lisa Antonini, the former county treasurer and county Democratic Party chairwoman; Michael Morley, a former county Democratic chairman and board of elections member, who is John Doe 4 in the indictment; and state Rep. Ronald V. Gerberry, also a Democrat.
Antonini pleaded guilty in November 2013 to a count of honest mail fraud for failing to report a $3,000 cash gift from Cafaro.
Five years earlier, a confidential informant taped Antonini talking about those investigating her: “I’m not [messing] around with these people. They’re trying to put me in jail,” according to the transcript.
They succeeded. Antonini served five months in a federal prison.
Antonini is cooperating with prosecutors. Morley and Gerberry haven’t been charged by prosecutors.
The indictment contends McNally, Sciortino 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 indictment also contends those in the criminal enterprise worked to get Yavorcik elected prosecutor in 2008 to make a criminal investigation into Oakhill go away.
A transcript of a March 1, 2008, conversation has the confidential informant tell Yavorcik that Antonini told him that if he’s elected, “You promised to watch out for them,” meaning Antonini, Sciortino, McNally and former county Treasurer John Reardon. Yavorcik responded, “Well, of course.”
McNally, Sciortino and Yavorcik have pleaded not guilty to 83 total charges they face.
The charges include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering.
There is still more evidence that needs to be filed.
Prosecutors agreed a few weeks ago to turn evidence they plan to use in the trial by June 1 from computers and computer files taken by Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation agents Sept. 22, 2014, from Sciortino’s home and Mahoning County offices.
Also, prosecutors have yet to submit a witness list.