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Ohio AG’s office lists additional evidence to be used in Sciortino trial
YOUNGSTOWN
Statements and interviews from three of ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino’s former employees, who prosecutors said were instructed by their then-boss to use government-owned computers and software for political purposes, are among evidence to be used against him in a criminal trial.
Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant attorney general prosecuting this case, filed a six-page supplemental discovery document Friday with the Mahoning County Clerk of Courts Office.
The document lists additional evidence prosecutors plan to use against Sciortino, who faces 25 felonies: 21 counts of unauthorized use of property – computer or telecommunication property – and four counts of theft in office. He’s pleaded not guilty.
His trial is set for Jan. 11.
Prosecutors say Sciortino, an Austintown Democrat, and three auditor’s office employees, at his direction, illegally used the county’s computers and software more than 300 times to raise money for his political campaign, as well as for his private law practice and his private music/DJ business between Oct. 6, 2005, and Aug. 29, 2012.
Two documents filed June 23 included a witness list and details of Sciortino’s activities.
That witness list included county auditor employees Ingrid Cassidy and Alisa Akuszweski, and Anthony Magnetta, a former county auditor employee who resigned in April.
Among the additional evidence listed on Friday’s document are a witness statement from Magnetta and recorded interviews with the other two.
The court filing also lists a supplemental witness list.
On that list are John B. Juhasz, Sciortino’s attorney; Jennifer Gaffney, general manager of the Knoll Run Golf Course in Coitsville, where Sciortino had a golf campaign fundraiser; Carol McFall, his former chief deputy auditor; former county Treasurer John Reardon, who is cooperating with the investigation; Jon Lieber, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation; Struthers mayoral candidate Danny Thomas Jr., who also is a political consultant; and Dina Donatelli of Lowellville.
Attempts by The Vindicator to reach Gaffney and Donatelli were unsuccessful.
Thomas told a reporter he has never been contacted by law enforcement about Sciortino.
“This is the first I’ve heard of this,” he said. “I didn’t work on any of his campaigns. I went to a couple of his fundraisers, and I’ve been friends with him. I’m curious why I’d be involved in this. I’m at a loss why I’d be on a prosecutor’s supplemental witness list.”
On Sept. 22, 2014, BCI cyber-crime agents removed numerous computers and 676 computer disks from Sciortino’s auditor’s office in the county courthouse, the county’s information technologies department at the county administration building, and the county’s computer network facility at Oakhill Renaissance Place.
The agents also seized two county-owned laptops and a computer hard drive from Sciortino, who had them at his home. He gave them to the agents in his garage area.
The filing noted “there was no computer in the county office of” Sciortino – “no monitor, no printer, no docking station.”
Sciortino wanted to give the computers he had at his home to BCI agents the day after they went to seize them. The request was rejected.
Juhasz couldn’t be reached by The Vindicator. He is on the witness list because Sciortino consulted with his attorney before giving BCI agents the computers from his home, said Dan Tierney, an attorney general spokesman.
Additional evidence prosecutors plan to use against Sciortino include a report by a BCI agent detailing what was found on the three computers he turned over at his house, a forensic analysis of the computers, and an email from Feb. 10, 2009, with a price list for his DJ services, which ranged from $600 for three hours of DJ and karaoke to $1,150 for four hours of live music, DJ and karaoke.
Other evidence on the document are statements from Reardon; former county auditor and administrator George Tablack; and Lisa Antonini, a former county treasurer and Democratic Party chairwoman who was once a close friend of Sciortino’s and is helping prosecutors as part of a plea deal.
The statements of Thomas and Donatelli will be provided at a later date, the document states. Thomas said he hasn’t given a statement.
The search warrant was related to the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case that is in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
In that case, Sciortino; Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, a Democrat in his former position as a Mahoning County commissioner; and attorney Martin Yavorcik, an unsuccessful 2008 independent candidate for county prosecutor, are accused of being part of a criminal enterprise that illegally, and unsuccessfully, tried to impede or stop the move of the county 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.
Ohio Valley Mall, the Cafaro subsidiary, received $440,000 a year in rent from the county to house JFS.
McNally, Sciortino and Yavorcik are charged with 83 combined counts, including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. They’ve pleaded not guilty. The trial is set for March.