Friday, April 22, 2016
CLEVELAND — A judge chose not to sentence Martin Yavorcik, convicted of eight felonies for his involvement in the Oakhill Renaissance Place scandal, to prison today.
Instead, she put him on probation for five years including house arrest for his first year. She also ordered him to do 200 hours of community service and to get alcohol-abuse treatment.
Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, had faced up to 10 years in prison. (Prosecutors had previously said it was up to 29 years.)
Dan Kasaris, the trial's lead prosecutor, asked the judge to sentence Yavorcik to five to nine years with a $20,000 fine saying he continues to lack remorse for his crimes.
Yavorcik asked for community control, and insisted, "I haven't committed a crime whatsoever."
But he added: "I've been absolutely ashamed of myself."
A jury on March 25 found Yavorcik, an attorney who defended himself, of one count each of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy and tampering with records, two counts of money laundering and three counts of bribery.
However, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court merged the conspiracy count today into the corruption conviction, which she said she would do after he was found guilty.
The jury convicted Yavorcik, 42, of Boardman, illegally taking about $140,000 in bribes to kill the Oakhill investigation if he was elected prosecutor. He lost that election by 38 percentage points to incumbent Paul J. Gains.
At today's sentencing, Gains said Yavorcik's criminal actions were a black mark on the Mahoning Valley's reputation for political corruption.
Prosecutors in the Oakhill case alleged a conspiracy started in 2006 to impede the move of Mahoning County’s Department of Job and Family Services from a Cafaro Co.-owned property on Youngstown’s East Side to the county-owned Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
A criminal investigation into that alleged conspiracy started a year later.
.