Thursday, September 17, 2015
CLEVELAND
The judge in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case rejected a motion from two of the three defendants to dismiss the matter.
In a one-sentence journal entry Wednesday, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the case, wrote the “motion is denied.” She didn’t explain why she rejected the motion.
Attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, both Democrats, filed a motion July 30 seeking to have numerous counts against the two dismissed because their clients weren’t granted a speedy trial and in some cases because prosecutors didn’t have the authority to file criminal charges against their clients.
Prosecutors had objected to the request for a dismissal.
Meanwhile, the death of the mother of John B. Juhasz, Sciortino’s attorney, will almost certainly cause the postponement of a Monday hearing in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case.
Juhasz filed the request Wednesday.
Juhasz and Lynn Maro, McNally’s attorney, had requested the hearing, and it was granted by the judge.
The two contend prosecutors are withholding about 1,300 hours of secretly recorded tapes. Prosecutors repeatedly insist that the about 700 hours of tape given to the defense is all they have.
Prosecutors have no objection to the postponement of the hearing, but Judge Burnside has to formally approve the request.
McNally, Sciortino and attorney Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, were indicted in March 2014 on 83 total criminal counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, conspiracy, perjury and money laundering. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors contend they were part of a criminal enterprise to illegally impede or stop the relocation of a county agency from a building owned by a subsidiary of the Cafaro Co. to Oakhill Renaissance Place, owned by the county.