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Details emerge in case against ex-Niles mayor Infante
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Ohio vs Infante - Bill of Particulars
Document
Response to the defendant's request for a Bill of Particulars in Case Number 2016 CR 00781 A, State of Ohio vs. Ralph Infante.
Dan Kasaris, the prosecutor in the Ralph Infante criminal case, filed a document Thursday giving more specific information about the crimes the former Niles mayor is accused of committing.
Among the specifics are that Infante, 61, allowed a company leasing the minor-league baseball stadium at Eastwood Mall to receive free water for 14 years to water the fields, preventing the city from collecting $60,000 it was owed.
This was done without city council approval.
The stadium was built in 1999.
The document – called a bill of particulars – also gives more specific details on gambling allegations leveled at Infante. The gambling charges relate to an illegal operation authorities said Infante and his wife, Judy, 67, ran out of their club, ITAM 39 on North State Street in McKinley Heights, Niles City Hall and at his home, the filing says.
It says from 1992 to this year, the former mayor conducted illegal gambling on the Super Bowl. In other years, the gambling involved the NCAA basketball tournament and NCAA football bowl games.
The filing gave a breakdown of the amounts of money Infante deposited in a Citizens Bank account from 1992 to 2015 that totaled $59,620. It said looking at Infante’s tax records showed that he never declared any of that money as income.
The money was deposited into a joint bank account for Infante and his wife, who is also charged with 10 offenses. When Ralph Infante was asked about the deposits, he “referred law enforcement to his wife,” the filing says.
“In Infante’s own handwriting, Infante kept track of the income coming in,” it said. The amount of the bets was from $10 to $300. The records were found in cigar boxes investigators found during a search at Infante’s house.
As for the water bills at the baseball field, the document says a supervisor told Infante at some point there was no meter keeping track of water use at the site, but there was a meter for the concession stands and clubhouses.
When told about the lack of a meter for the field, Infante told the supervisor to “let it go,” the document says.
Infante could not be reached to comment Thursday.
He is charged with a 54-count indictment that accuses him of bribery, theft in office, money laundering, racketeering, gambling and 17 counts of records tampering.
The document doesn’t identify the company or companies involved.
But it says the $60,000 the city lost because of the water use is in addition to $40,000 that same company “and/or its affiliates” didn’t have to pay for city services totaling nearly $100,000.
The Cafaro Co. was identified by a knowledgeable source as a business that received improper financial benefits as a result of criminal activities alleged in Infante’s indictment.
But the company won’t be charged in the case because investigators couldn’t determine if the company had knowledge of any fees the city waived for the company.
Joe Bell, Cafaro Co. spokesman, said the company leases the baseball stadium from the city of Niles. HWS Baseball, which owns the Scrappers baseball team, subleases it from the Cafaro Co.
HWS Baseball pays the electric bill, Bell said. Jordan Taylor, general manager of the Scrappers, could not be reached to comment, but Bell said Taylor indicated Thursday afternoon the Scrappers have been paying their water bill from the start.
Bell said any implication by the prosecutor the Cafaro Co. did anything wrong through waived fees or free water is incorrect.
“Where the prosecutor is making a mistake is in racking up all of these numbers,” Bell said, adding that it appears the numbers are “coming out of thin air.” Bell said he doesn’t know the amount of fees that were waived, and water bills at the stadium were the team’s responsibility.
The bill of particulars provides additional information to the defense in a criminal case. It is requested by defense counsel to help a defendant better prepare to defend against charges.
The document was filed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
A separate filing Thursday by Kasaris says he has provided Infante’s attorney with a witness list containing the names of more than 60 people who may be called as witnesses in this matter. The list is not being provided to the public, the filing says.
Regarding money that employees said they paid to Infante, one woman said she and her husband paid the former mayor $500 in cash every December in a Christmas card to Infante at the ITAM Club. She called the money her “homage payments” because Infante was mayor.
But that amount doubled in 2009, and the location of the money moved to city hall, she said.
She was asked if she paid the $1,000 to Infante in December 2015, and she exclaimed, “Why would I? He lost the election this year.” Infante lost in the spring Democratic primary in 2015 to Thomas Scarnecchia, who took office at the beginning of this year.
A male Niles employee who was a department head and longtime friend of Infante’s paid Infante $300 to $500 in cash every November from the time he became a department head, the filing said. He had never paid Infante before his promotion, it says.
One of the theft-in-office charges accuses Infante of allowing a city employee to run an auto mechanic shop in a city-owed garage using city property, the filing says. Infante took his own car there and also told friends to take their cars there, it says.
Another employee, on city time, circulated Infante re-election nominating petitions and used city equipment for re-election purposes, such as producing fundraising letters and fliers.
A charge of having an unlawful interest in a public contract says Infante rehired his brother, Joseph Infante, after his brother had retired. “Ralph infante had a history of hiring relatives while he was mayor of Niles,” the filing says. Ralph Infante also sought to give his brother compensation he was not entitled to receive, it says.
Even though another elected official advised Infante not to compensate his brother in this way, Infante “ignored the advice,” the filing says.
One count of records tampering accuses Ralph Infante of steering a 2012 contract for billing city utilities to a now-closed printing company that was partially owned by an Infante friend.
An unidentified person altered the bid for the other bidder, causing its bid to not be the lowest even though it was “the clear low bidder,” the filing says.