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Oakhill judge approves reduction of counts against 3
CLEVELAND
The judge overseeing the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption trial, who called for a “streamlining” of the case, agreed to a proposal from prosecutors to considerably reduce the number of counts in the indictment against the three defendants.
In a one-line journal entry, Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court granted the motion.
The original indictment unsealed May 14, 2014, had 73 counts, but as some charges list all of the defendants, the three faced a total of 83 counts.
Those numbers are now 45 and 53, respectively.
The Ohio Attorney General’s Office, prosecuting the case with the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, says the reductions won’t impact the case as several of them are duplicate charges for the same alleged criminal acts.
In responses to the proposed reduction in counts, attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino wrote that they didn’t object to the prosecutors’ motion to amend the indictment.
“The lack of objection is premised upon the state’s oral representation at the Jan. 15, 2016, pretrial that the dismissed charges will not be refiled,” they wrote.
The attorney for Martin Yavorcik, the other defendant, didn’t file a response to the amended indictment with the court about the reduction in charges. Even so, Yavorcik saw the greatest benefit from the reduction going from 27 counts to 11.
Prosecutors had filed the proposed reduction – on Judge Burnside’s order – on Jan. 14, the day before a pretrial hearing. The judge said Jan. 15 she wanted to give defense attorneys time to review the prosecutors’ proposal before making a decision. Attorneys for Sciortino and McNally filed motions late Wednesday not objecting to the reductions and the judge filed her journal entry a day later.
Meanwhile, prosecutors had deputy sheriffs serve subpoenas on 53 witnesses they plan to call to testify during the trial, which is to start Feb. 29.
In October, prosecutors filed a list of 92 potential witnesses for the trial.
Most of those receiving subpoenas this week were on that original list of potential witnesses.
Prosecutors still have the right to issue more subpoenas for witnesses if needed, said Dan Tierney, an attorney general spokesman.
Among those on the potential witness list who weren’t subpoenaed are:
Flora Cafaro, a Cafaro Co. executive who prosecutors still include in its list of unindicted co-conspirators in the criminal enterprise. The indictment alleges she improperly gave money to Yavorcik during his failed 2008 independent campaign for Mahoning County prosecutor.
Ex-Youngstown Mayor George M. McKelvey and Michael Morley, former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman. The amended indictment removed the two as members of the supposed criminal enterprise.
Former Trumbull County Commissioner James G. Tsagaris, who accepted $36,551 from Anthony Cafaro Sr. – who prosecutors allege is the head of the criminal enterprise – while in office. Tsagaris was convicted in 2009 of honest services mail-fraud.
Director Joyce Kale-Pesta and Deputy Director Thomas McCabe of the Mahoning County Board of Elections.
Youngstown Finance Director David Bozanich, ex-Mahoning County Commissioner David N. Ludt, ex-Youngstown Councilman Herman Hill, and Jamael Tito Brown, director of operations at the Mahoning County Treasurer’s Office and a former Youngstown council president.
Several lawyers, primarily from the Cleveland area, and various law-enforcement officials.
Harry Strabala, whose identity as the prosecutor’s main witness was kept secret from the public until he was forced to testify at an open October 2015 hearing, also made the list. Strabala, a political consultant, secretly taped Sciortino, Yavorcik and others at the direction of the FBI.
The indictment accuses McNally in his previous capacity as a Mahoning County commissioner along with Sciortino and Yavorcik of being part of a criminal enterprise. The enterprise worked to stop or impede the relocation of the county Job and Family Services agency from Garland Plaza, owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
The indictment accuses them of benefiting from their involvement in the enterprise.
They’ve pleaded not guilty to charges including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, perjury, money laundering and tampering with records.