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Oakhill witness list spells Cafaro
On the side
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted issued an advisory to county boards of elections urging them to “carefully analyze new voter registrations being submitted by the Ohio Organizing Collaborative.”
The advisory came Tuesday, the same day I reported that the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation was conducting an investigation of questionable voter registrations of a person paid by the OOC to register voters.
About 25 to 30 fraudulent voter-registration applications, including five dead people, were filed with the Columbiana County Board of Elections by the OOC.
The collaborative, through a spokeswoman, said, “One former canvasser is suspected of fabricating a number of voter registration cards” in Columbiana County, the OOC is “very disappointed to learn this” and is cooperating with the investigation.
The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department is also investigating a case of apparent voter registration fraud related to the OOC.
“In light of reports of potentially fraudulent registration practices [by OOC employees], county boards of elections must increase their attentiveness to statutory duties,” Husted wrote in the advisory.
Those on the potential witness list in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case looks a lot like who prosecutors would call to testify if they were to indict Anthony Cafaro Sr.
Prosecutor documents in this case describe Cafaro – sometimes referred to as Businessman 1 – as one of the main members of a criminal enterprise designed to largely benefit his family-owned shopping-center company.
The investigation is ongoing, but Cafaro, the retired head of the Cafaro Co., is not indicted.
Based on this potential witness list, that may just be a matter of time.
Meanwhile, a secret case regarding Cafaro’s involvement in the existing Oakhill case is moving through the Ohio Supreme Court. The state’s highest court ruled Wednesday to stay a decision by the 7th District Court of Appeals pending appeal.
Cafaro is on the potential witness list, though Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant attorney general and the case’s lead prosecutor, said at an Oct. 16 hearing that he didn’t expect Cafaro to testify.
Others on the list directly connected to Cafaro are:
His brother, J.J. Cafaro; his sister, Flora, who could find herself in trouble based on court documents, but hasn’t been charged; his daughter, Alyce; two of Flora’s sons, William and John Ferraro; Flora’s ex-husband, John C. Ferraro; Ben Martin, Alyce’s ex-husband; Earl “Butch” Marian, a longtime friend; Richard Goldberg, another longtime friend and a disbarred attorney who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients; numerous attorneys he has including John McCaffrey, his main lawyer, and James M. Dobran, Cafaro Co. chief legal counsel; at least two other Cafaro Co. employees; Lisa Antonini, a former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairwoman and county treasurer who failed to report a $3,000 cash contribution from Cafaro on a campaign finance report; and former Trumbull County Commissioner James G. Tsagaris, who accepted $36,551 while in office from Cafaro and was convicted in 2009 for honest services mail-fraud.
In the Oakhill case, prosecutors accuse Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally in his previous capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner, ex-county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, both Democrats; and attorney Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor, of being part of the criminal enterprise that benefited the Cafaro Co.
Along with other unindicted conspirators, they’re accused in court documents of illegally trying to stop or impede the relocation of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services from Garland Plaza, owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county. They’re also accused of trying to get Yavorcik elected county prosecutor to stop a criminal investigation into Oakhill.
The three have pleaded not guilty to a total of 83 criminal counts.
The potential witness list is just that – a list of only names. With the assistance of others, I was able to figure out the connections and/or jobs for all 86 names on the list. There are also unnamed “keeper of records” at five banks and one at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Several of the other names of potential witnesses are interesting.
Michael Harshman, a semi-retired attorney and law partner of Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras, is on the list.
Carolyn Funk, the retired Youngstown school district treasurer, is there as well.
Also on the list is Jamael Tito Brown, a former Youngstown council president and 3rd Ward councilman. He is director of operations for the county treasurer’s office, hired by Antonini when she was treasurer.
Anthony Vivo, the county clerk of courts, is also on the list as is James Mermis, a lobbyist whose clients include B.J. Alan Co.
Also not on the list is ex- Probate Court Judge Mark Belinky, convicted in July 2014 of tampering with records, which surprised a lot of people who follow this case. Belinky is apparently naming names to help investigators find additional corruption in the county.
There’s also an ongoing BCI criminal investigation into Belinky, who’s admitted to stealing money from people he was a guardian over and falsifying court records, among other crimes, according to a BCI special agent’s affidavit.
Additional list
An additional list is expected before this goes to trial March 1, 2016.
A number of people on the list have privately told me they want McNally, Sciortino and Yavorcik to take pleas.
They say it’s to help the county move forward. But some don’t want to testify about what they know – probably because it could implicate some of them in questionable/illegal activity.