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At arraignments, former Niles mayor, wife, employee plead not guilty
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The first hearing in what may prove to be a revealing look into decades’ worth of political corruption in Niles took place Monday, as former Niles Mayor Ralph Infante Jr. pleaded not guilty to 54 criminal charges, including bribery, theft, money laundering, racketeering, gambling and records tampering.
His wife, Judy, 67, and city employee Scott Shaffer, 51, of Niles also pleaded not guilty before visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove of Summit County, who set bond of $100,000 for each of the three. The hearing was in the Trumbull County Courthouse.
Judy Infante, who faces 11 charges, and Shaffer, who faces two counts of theft in office, also pleaded not guilty. Judy Infante is charged with nine counts of records tampering and single counts of racketeering and theft. Most of the charges accuse her of assisting her husband with filing false tax returns.
The bonds are personal recognizance, meaning the Infantes and Shaffer don’t have to pay anything. But Judge Cosgrove noted that failure to appear in court could have consequences, such as a new felony charge being filed.
She asked that any of the defendants with a passport turn them in to the court within 24 hours. Ralph and Judy Infante turned in their passports later Monday to the county clerk of courts office, which is run by Ralph’s sister, Karen Infante Allen.
After the hearing, the three were escorted in handcuffs to the Trumbull County jail to be booked and photographed. Judge Cosgrove announced that the case is scheduled for trial at 9 a.m. April 24, with a final pretrial hearing at 11 a.m. March 20 and a Feb. 20 deadline for the prosecution and defense to exchange evidence.
Dan Kasaris of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, special prosecutor in the case, said there is a “voluminous” amount of evidence, but he said it will be turned over to the defendants on one or two CDs.
Judge Cosgrove told the parties she wants this case “tried in the courtroom, not in the press” and asked that none of the parties talk about the case other than in court. This is sometimes called a “gag order,” though the record does not show that the judge issued a written gag order.
Kasaris was joined at the prosecutor’s table by Deane Hassman, special agent with the FBI’s Youngstown office. The investigation was handled by the Ohio Auditor’s Office, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI.
Representing Ralph Infante was Atty. John Juhasz, while Judy Infante was represented by Atty. Lou DeFabio, and Shaffer’s attorney is Martin White.
Ralph Infante appeared relaxed as he waited in the hallway before the hearing with Judy Infante and two daughters, telling a reporter he “never took a dime.”
His address on court records is North Rhodes Avenue in Niles, but he said that is a daughter’s house and he declined to identify where he is living now.
Among the three defendants, 56 charges were filed altogether, two of which named only Shaffer.
Ralph Infante, 61, who served as Niles mayor 24 years through 2015 and still serves as secretary of the Trumbull County Democratic Party, is one of the most recognizable government officials in Trumbull County.
But during a routine 2012 audit, state investigators uncovered thefts of more than $142,000 by city employee Phyllis Wilson. In October 2014, the state auditor’s office declared the city to be in fiscal emergency because of deficit spending.
Criminal investigators at about that time also searched Infante’s offices and later other city offices, Infante’s home and his bar, ITAM No. 39 in McKinley Heights. Infante lost in the Democratic primary the following spring.
His indictment says he participated in a criminal enterprise even before he became mayor in 1992, and the conduct lasted until January of this year. The enterprise’s purpose was to “create sources of money and power for Ralph Infante through bribery, theft in office, the misuse of city owned property,” according to his indictment.
Ralph Infante is accused of accepting about $150,000 in cash and gifts, such as NCAA Championship tickets in 2007 worth more than $7,500 from a businessman, without reporting them to the ethics commission.
He faces 10 misdemeanor charges of receiving improper compensation for purportedly accepting payments of cash in envelopes in 2009 and onward from city employees.
A theft-in-office charge accuses the former mayor of providing free city property to a company located in Niles without authority or city council approval and allowing city employees to use city equipment for personal use, including landscaping work at a former city councilman’s house.
He’s accused of accepting a bribe of $500 to $1,000 in 1993 in exchange for giving someone a job with the city. And he’s accused of giving a job to a friend of a contractor after the contractor performed $7,000 to $8,000 worth of work on Infante’s property in 1995.
If convicted, his charges could produce a prison sentence of more than 100 years. If convicted, Judy Infante could get more than 30 years in prison.
Shaffer could get up to six years in prison. He’s accused of selling city property for cash without returning the cash to the city, and using city equipment and property for personal reasons for more than a decade.