FBI tapes confirm the Valley’s history of political corruption; targets of major probe revealed

The FBI has a Mahoning Valley case file that “involves multiple public officials, multiple people and multiple investigations.”

Based on the area’s history of political corruption, the statement made during last Friday’s Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case by FBI Special Agent Deane Hassman didn’t come as a surprise.

But it’s still unnerving to know that on top of the politicians and candidates convicted of various crimes and the ones indicted whom the FBI confirmed that there’s more questionable and/or illegal behavior being investigated.

There were names dropped during last week’s hearing that lasted almost five hours.

Anthony Cafaro Sr., the retired head of his family-owned Cafaro Co., known as Businessman 1 in some of the Oakhill documents, has been the subject of FBI investigations since 2007, Hassman confirmed.

Cafaro was indicted in 2010 for his alleged involvement in the Oakhill case, but the case was dismissed a year later – with the right to indict again – when the FBI refused to give secretly recorded tapes made by informants of at least one defendant to prosecutors. They’ve since provided those tapes.

During the hearing, Dan Kasaris, the case’s lead prosecutor and senior assistant attorney general, was asked about FBI-taped interviews with former Trumbull County Commissioner James Tsagaris, a Democrat, about his dealings with Cafaro. The interviews were conducted Nov. 2, 2006, and Aug. 1, 2007.

Tsagaris was convicted by a federal judge in August 2009 for honest services mail-fraud for taking $36,551 from Cafaro in 2004 while he was in office and not reporting it on state financial disclosure statements. Cafaro wasn’t charged.

Tsagaris was given house arrest, but violated the terms and was sent to prison for nine months in 2010.

Lynn Maro, attorney for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, one of the three Oakhill defendants, called Cafaro an “unindicted co-conspirator” and asked Kasaris about the Tsagaris tapes.

Kasaris said that Tsagaris doing some “favors” for Cafaro had nothing to do with the Oakhill case.

Also, John B. Juhasz, attorney for ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, another Oakhill defendant, asked Hassman about a Feb. 23, 2007, recording David Ludt, while he was a Mahoning County commissioner, made of a conversation he secretly recorded with J.J. Cafaro, Anthony’s brother who was an executive with his family’s company at the time. Ludt made the recording on his own and gave it to the FBI.

In a Monday court filing, Kasaris wrote that the Ludt tape and the Tsagaris tapes were given to defendants over a year ago.

Prosecutors accuse McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, along with attorney Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor, with being part of a criminal enterprise to stop or impede the relocation of the county Job and Family Services office from Garland Plaza, a now-demolished shopping center on Youngstown’s East Side owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary.

The subsidiary received $440,000 a year in rent from the county.

Ludt and Commissioner Anthony Traficanti voted to move JFS to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center purchased by the county. McNally, a commissioner at the time, opposed the move.

Also, prosecutors claim those in the criminal enterprise conspired to get Yavorcik elected county prosecutor in 2008 to make an investigation into the matter go away.

The three have pleaded not guilty to 83 total criminal counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering.

There are about 100 people on the witness list with prosecutors going out of their way to protect the identity of confidential witnesses.

In a stunning move, the judge in the case ordered main confidential witness, political consultant Harry Strabala, to testify at the hearing. Prosecutors said he had been threatened a few times and his identity needed to be secret for his safety.

Secret tapings

Strabala secretly taped Sciortino, Yavorcik and numerous others over a period of about 10 years at the direction of the FBI.

The hearing’s focus was on how many hours of secretly recorded tapes made by informants were given to the Oakhill defendants.

Based on the previous Oak-hill case, defense attorneys said there are 2,000 hours while prosecutors say that was an estimate and the actual amount is 700 to 800 hours.

Before the case started, Kasaris said FBI agents, at his request to look again, found 12 more tapes. There is nothing more to give the defense, Kasaris said. In a Monday court filing, Kasaris wrote that the defense has failed to provide any discovery evidence to prosecutors, which is required under state court rules.

Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the case, seemed perplexed about a decision in how to rule on the tapes. It’s a complicated issue as she has to determine if other tapes, heard by only law enforcement, are relevant to the case.

In a Monday filing, she wrote that she’s asking the two sides to provide “suggested conclusions for this court.”