Mayor McNally to testify against Yavorcik Thursday in Cleveland

CLEVELAND

Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, who pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors, is scheduled to testify Thursday against Martin Yavorcik, a fellow defendant in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption trial.

McNally pleaded guilty Feb. 26 to two counts of falsification and one count each of unlawful use of a telecommunications device and attempted unlawful influence of a public official. He is to be sentenced March 28 along with ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, who also took a plea Feb. 26 to one felony and two misdemeanors.

Yavorcik, an attorney defending himself, said he plans to call Sciortino as a witness.

The convictions relate to McNally, when the Democrat was a Mahoning County commissioner, illegally faxing the county’s confidential offer July 13, 2006, to buy Oakhill – the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center – to attorneys at Ulmer & Berne, a Cleveland law firm that represented Anthony Cafaro Sr., the former head of his family-owned Cafaro Co. shopping-center business.

Cafaro wanted to stop the county from relocating its Jobs and Family Service Department from a Youngstown plaza owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary to Oakhill. McNally opposed the county’s purchase of Oakhill.

Prosecutors contend members of a criminal enterprise – including McNally and Cafaro, the latter hasn’t been charged – illegally conspired to stop or impede the move, which failed.

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