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Oakhill trial consultant, informant expected to testify
CLEVELAND
Harry Strabala, a political consultant and FBI informant, is expected to testify today at the trial of Martin Yavorcik, the lone defendant in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption trial to not plead guilty.
Strabala, who secretly taped Mahoning Valley politicians, including Yavorcik, is seen as a key prosecution witness.
After more than seven hours of questioning, potential jurors over the first two days of the trial, a jury was seated late Tuesday.
The first witness for the prosecution and the only one called was FBI special agent Wallace Sines, Strabala’s main contact at the bureau. Sines said Strabala worked with the FBI for 12 years, and secretly taped politicians he believed were corrupt.
During his 36-minute direct testimony, Sines answered questions from Matthew E. Meyer, a Cuyahoga County assistant prosecutor, primarily about Strabala.
Strabala, a political consultant, was a longtime FBI informant paid by the bureau to secretly tape politicians believed to have committed crimes. Some of those tapes of Yavorcik and others will be played for the jury.
Yavorcik, a failed 2008 Mahoning County prosecutor candidate facing 11 felonies, will cross-examine Sines when the trial resumes today.
During Strabala’s 12 years working as an FBI informant, the bureau paid him $102,909, Sines testified.
Of that money, Strabala was paid $81,875 for his work, doing most of his taping between late 2007 and the middle of 2009 while putting in about 20 hours a week of work, Sines said.
The remaining $21,034 was for expenses such as cellphones, including one that went directly to an FBI recording system and used at least once by Yavorcik, as well as meals with people he was taping and gas for his car.
He also received less than $400 each for a hotel stay and for political events.
Sines said he first met Strabala in 2002, who approached the FBI to help fight public corruption in the Mahoning Valley.
Earlier in 2002, Strabala was convicted of theft by deception, a felony, for taking $33,835 from the 7th Ward Citizens Coalition, of which he was president at the time, that was to be used for a playground project at Ipes Field.
He was motivated to give back to the community, Sines said — without mentioning the conviction that landed Strabala in Mahoning County jail for 90 days.
Strabala’s secret recordings led to the convictions of Lisa Antonini, a former county Democratic Party chairwoman and county treasurer, ex-Probate Court Judge Mark Belinky, and former state Rep. Ronald V. Gerberry, Sines said. The three, all Democrats, resigned.
In opening statements, in the second day of the trial in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Dan Kasaris, the case’s chief prosecutor, said Yavorcik was bribed to run for prosecutor in 2008 as an independent by those reportedly involved in the Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal-corruption investigation to make it go away if he won.
In his 36-minute opening statement, Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general, said prosecutors have secretly taped recordings, made by Strabala. One, Kasaris said, has Yavorcik telling some of those being investigated that “if he won, I will kill the investigation.”
In his 15 minutes of opening remarks in his trial, Yavorcik said, “I have waited a long time for this. There was no conspiracy, no cover-up.”
He added that some of the people allegedly involved in the supposed Oakhill criminal enterprise were his friends for 20 years who didn’t like the job being done by Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, a Democrat.
“I had no belief they committed any crimes,” Yavorcik said of his friends.
When talking to potential jurors before a jury was selected, Yavorcik said people could get together and work toward "a common goal without an evil intent."
Prosecutors claim those in the alleged conspiracy paid Yavorcik close to $150,000 as bribes for him to run.
“These so-called bribes are campaign contributions,” said Yavorcik, with all but $15,000 listed on his campaign finance reports.
The $15,000, Yavorcik said, was a legal retainer from Flora Cafaro, a Cafaro Co. executive, with the expectation that it may never be needed.
Prosecutors contend the $15,000 was a bribe that Yavorcik used for a poll to see what his chances were to beat Gains.
Yavorcik said: “There’s no evidence there were bags of cash.”
A jury of 12 with four alternates were chosen after the judge, Yavorcik and prosecutors questioned potential jurors for about seven hours between Monday and Tuesday.
Judge Janet R. Burnside of Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, who is overseeing the trial, did much of the questioning.
Those 16 were chosen from 29 potential jurors.
During questioning of the potential jurors, Leigh Bayer, an Ohio assistant attorney general, said the jury would hear from people with criminal records, some who struck plea deals with prosecutors. She asked potential jurors to not hold that against them.
Yavorcik’s two co-defendants ñ Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino, both Democrats took deals Feb. 26 before the start of the trial.
Yavorcik faces one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, one count of conspiracy, three counts of bribery, four counts of money laundering, and two counts of tampering with records.
Prosecutors contend Yavorcik is part of a criminal conspiracy that illegally tried to stop or impede the relocation of the Mahoning County Job and Family Services Department from Garland Plaza, owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, to Oakhill Renaissance Place, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center owned by the county.
However, Yavorcik had nothing to do with trying to stop that move.
Prosecutors contend members of the criminal enterprise including McNally; Sciortino; Antonini; Flora Cafaro; and Anthony Cafaro Sr., the former head of his family-owned Cafaro Co. retail property development business illegally gave money to Yavorcik.
Prosecutors aren’t having Flora or Anthony Cafaro Sr. testify. But J.J. Cafaro, their brother and a retired company executive, will testify. They all gave $40,000 contributions to Yavorcik’s failed campaign.
In exchange, prosecutors say Yavorcik ran as an independent in 2008 for Mahoning County prosecutor so that if he won, he wouldn’t prosecute or investigate anyone in the criminal enterprise. He lost by 38 percentage points to Gains. Prosecutors also accuse Yavorcik of filing false campaign finance reports.