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Oakhill prosecutors nix Yavorcik motion to dismiss case
CLEVELAND
Prosecutors in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case said the request from the attorney for defendant Martin Yavorcik to dismiss over a lack of venue isn’t proper prior to this trial.
In an eight-page court filing Friday, Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant attorney general and the lead prosecutor on the case, wrote: “The indictment must only allege that venue lies in Cuyahoga County to survive a pretrial motion to dismiss. Because venue, as a fact that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the state, is an element that cannot be determined without a trial on the issue, a pretrial motion challenging venue is not appropriate.”
Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is hearing the case, denied similar venue motions from Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino in June.
Prosecutors allege that Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, along with McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, are part of a criminal enterprise that unsuccessfully tried to impede or stop the relocation of a county agency from a building owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
An indictment also claims the enterprise tried to get Yavorcik elected prosecutor to make a criminal investigation into the matter go away.
The three face a total of 83 criminal counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
In a Sept. 29 motion, Mark Lavelle, Yavorcik’s attorney, wrote that none of the elements of his client’s supposed criminal offenses occurred in Cuyahoga County. Also, he wrote that any purported crimes by McNally, Sciortino or others in this case in Cuyahoga County are alleged to have happened before Yavorcik’s supposed involvement in the conspiracy in 2008.
In Friday’s response, Kasaris wrote that the state’s venue statute “is extraordinarily broad,” and all that is needed is to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that any one element of any one of the offenses alleged in the indictment occurred in Cuyahoga County” even if it wasn’t committed by Yavorcik.
“In a prosecution for engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, venue is proper in any county in which any member committed a single overt act in furtherance of the enterprise, regardless of whether that person ever even set foot in the county in question,” Kasaris wrote.
The prosecutor added: “As a co-conspirator, Yavorcik is liable for the criminal acts of the entire enterprise, even if he was unaware or uninvolved of some of the predicate acts,” and that “Yavorcik’s overt acts in Mahoning County were intended to cover up the overt acts of other co-conspirators that occurred in Cuyahoga County.”
The three were indicted May 14, 2014, with the trial scheduled to start March 1, 2016. A hearing is scheduled for Friday to settle a dispute over the number of hours of conversations made of Yavorcik, Sciortino and others – but not McNally – by a confidential witness.