McNally, Yavorcik ask for 3rd dismissal, alleging political revenge, taxpayer waste

CLEVELAND

Defense attorneys in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption case have filed a third motion in less than two weeks seeking to get the indictment dismissed.

“This case is simply now about political payback, it is about people who cannot stand to be in the presence of one another, and the case is about efforts to hurt one another at all costs – with the costs of the predators being an astronomical expenditure of taxpayer dollars,” wrote the attorneys for Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, two of the case’s three defendants.

The motion, filed Friday, accuses Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains and his staff of “prosecutorial misconduct” and requests a hearing to get the judge overseeing this trial to dismiss the indictment.

If the judge won’t dismiss, the attorneys – Lynn Maro for McNally and John B. Juhasz for Sciortino – are asking Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court to suppress “all evidence and documentation garnered by any investigation person or agency prior to May 14, 2014,” the day of the indictment.

They also want to bar any current or former Mahoning County prosecutor employees from testifying in the case, which is to begin Feb. 29.

Read more about the case in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.