Judge to rule Friday on Yavorcik request to represent himself in Oakhill case

CLEVELAND

With the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case scheduled to start Feb. 29, the number of filings by defendants to suppress evidence and dismiss charges keeps on growing.

In the latest filing, defendant Martin Yavorcik, a failed 2008 independent candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, wants the case’s judge not to permit any evidence to be used against him that came from recordings of him made secretly by Harry Strabala, a political consultant and FBI informant.

Yavorcik along with attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, the two other defendants, have filed more than 20 motions – largely to dismiss the case or not permit certain exhibits and witnesses to be part of the trial – in the past month.

However, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the trial, Thursday removed from the docket two motions filed by Yavorcik, an attorney who wants to defend himself, because they were written by the defendant, and she hasn’t ruled on his request to be his own lawyer.

The judge set a hearing for Friday to consider that request.

An indictment accuses Yavorcik, along with McNally in his former capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner, and Sciortino, both Democrats, of being part of a criminal enterprise that conspired to stop or impede the relocation of a county agency from a building owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Hospital owned by the county.

The three have pleaded not guilty to 53 total counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, perjury, money laundering and tampering with records.

Read more about this latest filing in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.