Are the G-Men lying?

First, let there be no misunderstanding: The headline is not a reflection of this writer’s opinion about the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their indirect involvement in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case. Far from it.

And, it certainly isn’t the view of the judge who is presiding over the trial.

Rather, the headline is directed at the defendants, who continue to make a big deal of the secretly recorded tapes that were in the possession of the FBI.

Prosecutors in the state criminal case against Youngstown Mayor and former Mahoning County Commissioner John A. McNally, former county Auditor Michael Sciortino and Youngstown Atty. Martin Yavorcik have said in open court and in court filings that defense lawyers have received all the tapes that relate to the Oakhill scandal. They cover 700 to 800 hours of conversations dealing with the conspiracy that was cooked up by Youngstown businessman Anthony M. Cafaro Sr.

Cafaro, the retired president of the Cafaro Co., aimed to block the county commissioners from buying Oak-hill Renaissance Place, the former Southside Medical Center. Two commissioners at the time, Anthony Traficanti, who is still in office, and David Ludt, who lost a re-election bid, made it known they would move the county’s Job and Family Services agency from the Cafaro Co.-owned Garland Plaza on Youngstown’s East Side to Oakhill Renaissance Place.

Cafaro’s bidding

Then-Commissioner McNally fought the purchase, as did then-Auditor Sciortino. Prosecutors are expected to introduce evidence that will show the two elected officials doing Cafaro’s bidding. Yavorcik, on the other hand, was put in the county prosecutor race against incumbent Paul Gains, who got the ball rolling on the conspiracy case by turning over boxes of records to the Ohio Ethics Commission. The commission, in turn, got the FBI involved. The federal government handed the case over to the state.

The existence of the secretly recorded tapes surfaced in 2011 as the first Oakhill trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court was set to begin. The case was dismissed – with the right to indict again – because federal authorities would not give the recordings to the special prosecutors. The defendants included Cafaro.

The current case is being heard in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, with Judge Janet R. Burnside presiding.

A motion was filed this month by lawyers for McNally and Sciortino to dismiss the 80-plus charges against them on the grounds that they have not received from prosecutors all of the relevant secretly recorded tapes.

Prosecutors, led by Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant attorney general, counter that the defendants have been given everything they have, and that any talk about 2,000 hours of tapes is just that – talk.

As prosecutors have said repeatedly, based on their conversations with the FBI agents, the 2,000 figure was an “off-the-cuff” estimate.

Last week, in response to the motion filed by the lawyers for McNally and Sciortino, one of the prosecutors, Adam M. Chaloupka, said that 2,000 hours of recorded statements “do not, and have never existed” and contended that the defense motion “is no more than a charade and fishing expedition to delay or prevent a trial on March 1, 2016,” going forward.

The FBI agents have said there aren’t 2,000 hours of tapes that relate to the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case. The prosecutors in the case say that at most there are 800 hours of tapes and they have been turned over to the defendants.

And, during a hearing in October on this very issue, there was testimony from special prosecutors from the first Oakhill trial and two Youngstown-based FBI special agents, Deane Hassman and Wallace Sines.

With officers of the court and FBI agents with stellar reputations saying there aren’t 2,000 hours of tapes relating to the Oakhill Renaissance conspiracy case, why would the defendants continue to insist that evidence is being withheld from them?

One possible explanation is that McNally, Sciortino and Yavorcik are looking for any excuse to further delay the trial.

Or, it could be well be that they don’t believe that the G-Men are being truthful about the tapes.

The 2,000 figure came from one of the special prosecutors in the first Oakhill case, David Muhek, an assistant Lorain County prosecutor, who said he estimated the number after talking to the federal law enforcement.

Given that, there is a way for the defendants to get to the bottom of what they claim is the withholding of evidence: They should just ask the FBI for the tapes McNally and the others believe exist.

Judge Burnside issued her ruling on the defendants’ motion, saying in part, “There was no evidence that the 2,000 hours figure was the result of calculation, and educated guess of intelligent estimation. The evidence revealed no one even bothered to count or itemize or even carefully estimate the number of hours.”

Based on the judge’s ruling, this much is clear: FBI are pure as driven snow in this instance.

Defendants would do well to end their pitiful attempt to delay the trial.