43
A postponed hearing in the Oakhill case is rescheduled for Oct. 13
CLEVELAND
A postponed hearing in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case is rescheduled for Oct. 13.
At the hearing, attorneys for two defendants – Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino – will argue that prosecutors are withholding about 1,300 hours of secretly recorded tapes.
Prosecutors have repeatedly stated confidential witnesses made about 700 hours of recordings, and all of those tapes have been given to defense attorneys.
The defense says based on past statements there are 2,000 hours of such tapes. Prosecutors say the 2,000 hours was an “off-the-cuff” estimate and the actual amount is about 700 hours.
The hearing was to take place Monday, but Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the case, postponed it at the request of the defense.
John B. Juhasz, Sciortino’s attorney, asked for the delay because of the death of his mother.
Juhasz and Lynn Maro, McNally’s attorney, have requested that a confidential witness, the case’s lead prosecutor, two FBI agents, and three special prosecutors from the first Oakhill case be compelled to testify at the hearing.
Prosecutors object to having all but the two FBI agents testify, and wrote in a recent court document that “the federal government will make both [agents] available to testify in this case.”
McNally and Sciortino, both Democrats, along with 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 the three were part of a criminal enterprise to impede or stop the relocation of a county agency from a building owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, owned by the county.