Defense in Oakhill case targets confidential witness

CLEVELAND — Attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case defendants, want a judge to allow them to issue a subpoena to a confidential witness, without revealing his identity, to find out what he knows about secretly recorded tapes.

Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the case, agreed to a Sept. 21 hearing to resolve a long-standing dispute between defense attorneys and prosecutors over the amount of the tapes.

Defense attorneys have contended there are 2,000 hours of tapes while prosecutors say the number is 700 hours, and all of them have been given to the defense.

Lynn Maro, who represents McNally, and John B. Juhasz, who represents Sciortino, wrote in a Monday filing the confidential witness is someone with whom Sciortino “had numerous telephone calls and meetings – many more than what has been disclosed by the government in its three or four recordings in which Sciortino is either a participant or is present, and in which the informant was wearing a ‘wire.’”

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