McNally lacks credibility as mayor of Youngstown

EDITOR'S NOTE — This story has been edited to correct one of McNally's pleas that was mislabeled by prosecutors.

We aren’t going to repeat our call for John A. McNally’s resignation as mayor of the city of Youngstown given his criminal record because we know he won’t.

McNally has shown a wanton disregard for the community he professes to love. Having a mayor who has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his involvement in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal enterprise is a black eye Youngstown can ill afford.

Not only is McNally, a Democrat, refusing to step down – Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras has also called for his resignation – he intends to run for re-election next year.

Should he seek another term, we urge the voters of the city to be more insightful than the judge who sentenced the mayor to a year’s probation and required him to perform 20 hours of community service. He must also pay a $3,500 fine and report to his probation officer every six months.

Such kid-glove treatment from Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Janet Burnside should in no way influence the voters of Youngstown in 2017 if McNally runs again.

He gave up the right to serve in public office after he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of falsification and one count each of unlawful use of a communication device and attempted disclosure of confidential information. The charges relate to his tenure as a Mahoning County commissioner when he and other county officials became part of a criminal enterprise cooked up by prominent Mahoning Valley businessman Anthony M. Cafaro Sr. The enterprise was designed to block the county’s purchase of Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Southside Medical Center. Cafaro did not want the purchase to go through – Commissioners Anthony Traficanti and David Ludt supported the project – because the county’s Job and Family Services agency was to be relocated from the Cafaro Co.-owned Garland Plaza.

New quarters

The deal went through, and JFS is now housed in Oakhill Renaissance.

In addition to McNally, former county Auditor Michael Sciortino also was sentenced Monday for his role in the criminal enterprise. He had pleaded guilty to a felony count of having an unlawful interest in a public contract and one misdemeanor count each of falsification and receiving or soliciting improper compensation.

McNally and Sciortino reached plea agreements in the Oakhill case with the prosecutors, two from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and one from the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.

Sciortino also was given a tap on the wrist by Judge Burnside. He is on probation for a year, must report to a probation officer once every six months and cannot hold public office for seven years.

The common-pleas court judge could have sent McNally to prison for 18 months and Sciortino for 10 years.

Their plea agreements with the state require them to cooperate in the on- going investigation of the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal enterprise.

The third defendant in what should be the opening salvo, Youngstown Atty. Martin Yavorcik, was convicted recently of eight felonies stemming from his participation in the enterprise. Yavorcik will be sentenced April 22.

The lenient treatment McNally and Sciortino received March 28 flies in the face of the seriousness of their criminal activities.

Indeed, Judge Burnside made note of Sciortino’s “bald-face lie” in a deposition and said such behavior from a lawyer is “troubling.” McNally also is a lawyer.

She also asked the two convicted criminals about their disloyalty and their working with attorneys paid by Anthony M. Cafaro Sr. “against what the county wanted.”

Lawyers for McNally and Sciortino offered the ridiculous explanation that by objecting to the Oakhill Renaissance purchase they were demonstrating their loyalty to county residents.

If that’s the case, why didn’t the defendants reject any plea agreement and demand a jury trial – as Yavorcik did? Because, like Yavorcik, they would have lost.

Unlike Sciortino, McNally is permitted to serve in public office, and he has every intention of doing so.

Thus, the only way to get him out is for the voters of Youngstown to reject him at the polls next year.

CORRECTION

In coverage of Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally’s trial results, The Vindicator described one of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty as “attempted unlawful influence of a public official” and then referred to that charge as “attempted bribery.”

Neither “attempted unlawful influence of a public official” nor “attempted bribery” is correct. The mayor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, which in nonlegal phrasing is attempted disclosure of confidential information.

Misidentifying the mayor’s crime arose from an apparent clerical error in one of the many counts of McNally’s indictment: Count 63. The indictment’s heading for Count 63 called the crime “public official or employee’s unlawful influence,” which would be akin to bribery as popularly understood.

But the indictment’s heading for count 63 was mistaken. The actual language of the indictment quoted from a state law that bars public officials or employees from disclosing confidential information.

At McNally’s guilty-plea hearing, the court granted the prosecutor’s recommendation to amend count 63 of the indictment to make it an attempted disclosure of confidential information instead of a completed disclosure of confidential information.

But no one addressed the mistaken heading of count 63 – ”unlawful influence”– as it appeared in the indictment. Because of that heading, The Vindicator described the mayor’s conviction as pleading guilty to “attempted unlawful influence.”

He did not. McNally pleaded guilty to attempted disclosure of confidential information.