Yavorcik took a risk in fighting charges in Oakhill case and lost

Martin Yavorcik was offered plea bargains at least twice before a jury found him guilty of eight felonies.

After seeing that his two Oakhill Renaissance Place corruption case’s co-defendants – Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino – walk away with a year of probation each after taking plea deals, Yavorcik likely wasn’t in the best of moods.

Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent county prosecutor candidate, faces serious prison time.

Yavorcik was offered a deal to plead guilty to lesser charge. A couple of sources said one deal would have had him plead guilty to one felony and two misdemeanors. If Yavorcik took the plea, he would have almost certainly received probation.

Instead, he rolled the dice and lost.

A jury found Yavorcik guilty last Friday of one count each of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy and tampering with records as well as three counts of bribery and two counts of money laundering. He’ll be sentenced April 22.

The corrupt-activity charge is a first-degree felony.

“For a nonviolent offense in Ohio, that’s as bad as it gets,” said Matthew E. Meyer, one of the three government attorneys who prosecuted Yavorcik.

Yavorcik faces up to 29 years in prison. While his sentence won’t be close to that amount of time, he could end up with two or three years.

I’d use the cliche that I covered Yavorcik’s trial from gavel to gavel. But reality is I was in the courtroom well before the first gavel and well after the last gavel of each day of his two-week trial.

It was a most peculiar trial as prosecutors focused the first half of it convincing the jury that a conspiracy – sans Yavorcik for most of it – existed between elected officials such as McNally in his previous role as a Mahoning County commissioner, Sciortino, ex-county Treasurers John Reardon and Lisa Antonini, who are all Democrats, as well as attorneys with the Cleveland law firm of Ulmer & Berne, and officials with the Cafaro Co., most notably Anthony Cafaro Sr., its former president.

The alleged conspirators, most who aren’t indicted, supposedly tried illegally to stop or impede the county’s purchase of Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, in order to keep a county agency at a building owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary. They also allegedly convinced Yavorcik to run for prosecutor in 2008 to kill the investigation if elected.

The jury heard no direct testimony that Yavorcik was asked to run for prosecutor to put a stop to the investigation or that he told others he would do that if he was elected. He lost by 38 percentage points to incumbent Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, a Democrat.

Besides not taking a plea deal when he had numerous chances to do so, Yavorcik’s biggest mistake was defending himself in such a serious case.

I’ve never seen Yavorcik, an attorney since 1999, in action, but obviously the jury’s verdict tells the story of his defense.

After his conviction, Yavorcik admitted he was stunned and said, “I didn’t think the government proved its case, but the jury thought otherwise.”

The jury found him guilty of six of the more serious counts after just a few hours of deliberations.

That included convictions of bribery and money laundering for taking $2,500 from Sciortino.

Sciortino didn’t testify because prosecutors said he lied to them when they interviewed him March 7, 10 days after he pleaded guilty to one felony and two misdemeanors. As part of his plea deal, Sciortino spoke with prosecutors about his involvement in the Oakhill scandal and was supposed to cooperate.

Plea deals cut both ways.

Prosecutors likely regret making one with Sciortino.

When contending Sciortino lied to them when he said he didn’t know Anthony Cafaro Sr. had paid legal fees on his behalf, prosecutors said they would be willing to drop the deal and put the former county auditor on trial.

John B. Juhasz, Sciortino’s attorney, said his client was being truthful and didn’t know about Cafaro paying the legal fees until much later.

It also wasn’t like McNally’s testimony was that helpful.

McNally pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Prosecutors were expecting McNally to testify that Sciortino, Reardon and John Zachariah, the former director of the county Department of Job and Family Services, were in a July 13, 2006, meeting with him, Cafaro and attorneys to establish a conspiracy related to free legal fees. McNally couldn’t recall any of the then public officials at that meeting.

Also, prosecutors had to dismiss a felony count of money laundering against Yavorcik for illegally accepting money from McNally before jury deliberations because the charge couldn’t be substantiated during the trial.