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Sciortino seeking trial postponement
YOUNGSTOWN
The attorney for ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, facing 25 felony counts, asked a judge to delay the Jan. 11 trial date and to grant an extension of at least 90 days to file pretrial motions and disclose evidence.
The reasons given in a legal motion from John B. Juhasz, who represents Sciortino, are unforeseen developments in some of his other cases that make “it impossible for counsel to do what is required in the representation of the defendant and to [ensure] that the proceedings against him are fair.”
Juhasz wrote in the seven-page filing: “Counsel in all candor cannot meet the deadlines effectively nor can counsel be prepared for a trial in January. In short, counsel would be constitutionally ineffective.”
Thursday was the deadline given by Juhasz on Aug. 6 from visiting Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove to file pretrial motions and turn over evidence to the prosecution. Juhasz filed a request to continue the trial and extend his pretrial deadline “by not less than 90 days.” If approved by the judge, the trial would be delayed from its scheduled Jan. 11 start date.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office, prosecuting the case, plans to file a reply objecting to Juhasz’s requests.
“We intend to state that an appropriate time for a discovery extension is no more than six weeks and not 90 days,” said Dan Tierney, an attorney general spokesman. “We’ll also ask for a trial date to be set as soon as possible. It’s important that in these cases that the public hear about public corruption as soon as possible.”
Sciortino, a Democrat, was indicted June 4 on 21 counts of unauthorized use of property – computer or telecommunication property – and four counts of theft in office. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Sciortino and three auditor employees at his direction illegally used the county’s computers and software more than 300 times for political purposes to keep him in office and for his private law practice and music/DJ business. This occurred between Oct. 6, 2005, shortly after he was appointed to the job, and Aug. 29, 2012, they allege.
In his motion, Juhasz said that several cases kept him from focusing on Sciortino. That included working out a lengthy deal for attorney Scott R. Cochran to plead guilty to misbehavior in the presence of the court, a brief to be filed with the Ohio Supreme Court on a capital case, a capital appeal for a client on death row and an Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case hearing.
The 25 felonies against Sciortino came after Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation cyber-crime agents, with search warrant, removed numerous computers and 676 computer disks Sept. 22, 2014, from various county auditor offices. The agents also took two county-owned laptops and a computer hard drive from Sciortino’s Austintown home.
The search warrant was related to the Oakhill case in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. In that case, Sciortino; Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, a Democrat in his previous capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner; and attorney Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor were indicted. They are accused of being part of a criminal enterprise that illegally tried to impede or stop the move of a Mahoning County agency from a plaza owned by a subsidiary of the Cafaro Co. to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county. The Cafaro subsidiary received $440,000 a year in rent from the county.
The three have pleaded not guilty to the 83 total counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering.
In the Sciortino filing, Juhasz wrote that he “believes” an Oct. 16 hearing on the amount of secretly-recorded tapes in the Oakhill case “will engender additional litigation in that case.”
In a Nov. 2 court filing in the Oakhill case, Juhasz and Lynn Maro, McNally’s attorney, contend prosecutors purposely violated evidence law and that the cases against their two clients should be dismissed.
In response, Tierney said, “We find it ironic they made this filing the same day the judge ruled in favor of the prosecution’s motion to compel” the defendants to turn over evidence it’s withheld by Nov. 30. That case is to begin March 1, and Tierney said a delay in the Sciortino case would impact the start of the Oakhill case.