Thursday, March 17, 2016
J.J. Cafaro also may take the stand today
EDITOR'S NOTE — This story has been edited to correct one of McNally's pleas that was mislabeled by prosecutors.
CLEVELAND
Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, who pleaded guilty to four misdemeanors, is scheduled to testify today 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 disclosure of confidential information. 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.
The enterprise purportedly paid Yavorcik to run in 2008 as an independent candidate for county prosecutor and stop an investigation into them if he was elected. He lost to incumbent Prosecutor Paul J. Gains, a Democrat, by 38 percentage points.
Yavorcik, the lone Oakhill defendant not to take a plea, faces 11 felonies: one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, one county of conspiracy, three counts of bribery, four counts of money laundering, and two counts of tampering with records.
Also on the prosecutors’ witness list for today are: J.J. Cafaro, a retired executive with his family’s business and Anthony Sr.’s brother, who gave $40,000 to Yavorcik’s failed prosecutor campaign; James Dobran, Cafaro Co.’s chief legal counsel; Leslie Sok, a Cafaro Co. executive assistant; Robert Kucharski, a paralegal at Ulmer & Burne; John Zachariah, the former JFS director who prosecutors say perjured himself or made false statements under oath; Bruce L. Waterhouse Jr., a former attorney for McNally; and Paul Nick, head of the Ohio Ethics Commission.
During testimony Wednesday, the third day of Yavorcik’s trial, Harry Strabala, an FBI informant and political consultant, said the defendant told him if elected prosecutor he would end the criminal investigation into those who tried to stop the Oakhill purchase.
Strabala secretly recorded Yavorcik and others for at least six years at the direction of Wallace Sines, an FBI special agent.
During nearly two-and-a-half hours of testimony, Strabala said he would “lie” to “stimulate conversations” with politicians believed by him and/or Sines of possibly being corrupt.
At the hearing, some of those tapes were played for jurors. But the sound quality for a number of audio tapes were poor. Portions were inaudible to Strabala, Yavorcik, Judge Janet R. Burnside, who is overseeing the case, and others at the trial.
While prosecutors say the tapes prove Yavorcik was on the take, the defendant said there’s no evidence that he had any plans to stop an investigation.
“I didn’t think they did anything wrong,” Yavorcik said.
Yavorcik contends he ran in 2008 because he and others believed Gains wasn’t a good prosecutor.
“Paul Gains was going after corrupt officials,” Strabala said.
Those being investigated at the time of the 2008 campaign were McNally; Sciortino; ex-Treasurer John Reardon; then county Democratic Party Chairwoman Lisa Antonini, who was also county treasurer at the time; Cafaro; and his sister Flora, a Cafaro Co. executive.
On a tape played in court, Yavorcik said, “I don’t believe they did” anything illegal. “How is that a crime?”
Strabala – who Sines testified Tuesday received $102,909 over 12 years from the FBI – said those being investigated “knew they had vulnerability” and were “worried about being prosecuted.”
On a taped cellphone conversation, Yavorcik said, “You’re absolutely right,” in response to Strabala telling him he has to win or those being investigated would be prosecuted. All but the Cafaros have been convicted of crimes.
Strabala said it was “public knowledge” those people were being investigated as it was reported numerous times by The Vindicator.
“The Vindicator wrote their articles on hard facts,” Strabala said.
Strabala’s secret recordings led to the convictions of Antonini, ex-Probate Court Judge Mark Belinky, and former state Rep. Ronald V. Gerberry, Sines said. The three, all Democrats, resigned.
Yavorcik is also on tape telling Kurt Welsh – Antonini’s boyfriend – that if elected he could end pending criminal charges against him. During cross-examination, Yavorcik said the supposed case fixing never happened and that sometimes people brag.
Also testifying Wednesday were witnesses having nothing to do with Yavorcik. They were on the stand to testify about the purported Oakhill conspiracy to establish that Yavorcik joined an existing conspiracy later to get rid of the investigation should he be elected.
County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti explained the purchase of Oakhill. Melissa M. Macejko, an attorney who represented a bankruptcy trustee selling the former hospital, testified that the Cafaro Co. expressed interested in buying the building, but didn’t submit a bid.
James A. Pitzer, a JPMorgan Chase senior vice president, said Anthony Cafaro Sr. sought a loan to buy the lien on the former hospital.
The Cafaro Co.’s involvement in this and other issues led JPMorgan to ask the company to stop being the bank’s customer, Pitzer said. The Cafaro Co. was the bank’s largest client in the Youngstown area and second- or third-largest in Northeast Ohio when the relationship ended in 2011, he said.
Samuel M. Moffie testified that Anthony Cafaro Sr. asked him to file a taxpayer’s lawsuit against the county to stop the Oakhill purchase, which he declined to do. Moffie also said Cafaro said he’d give him the $100,000 needed to buy the Oakhill tax lien.
“I thought about it, but cooler heads prevailed,” Moffie said.
Yavorcik either declined to cross examine the witnesses or had them say he had nothing to do with the Oakhill purchase.
CORRECTION
In coverage of Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally’s trial results, The Vindicator described one of the crimes to which he pleaded guilty as “attempted unlawful influence of a public official” and then referred to that charge as “attempted bribery.”
Neither “attempted unlawful influence of a public official” nor “attempted bribery” is correct. The mayor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor, which in nonlegal phrasing is attempted disclosure of confidential information.
Misidentifying the mayor’s crime arose from an apparent clerical error in one of the many counts of McNally’s indictment: Count 63. The indictment’s heading for Count 63 called the crime “public official or employee’s unlawful influence,” which would be akin to bribery as popularly understood.
But the indictment’s heading for Count 63 was mistaken. The actual language of the indictment quoted from a state law that bars public officials or employees from disclosing confidential information.
At McNally’s guilty-plea hearing, the court granted the prosecutor’s recommendation to amend Count 63 of the indictment to make it an attempted disclosure of confidential information instead of a completed disclosure of confidential information.
But no one addressed the mistaken heading of Count 63 – ”unlawful influence”– as it appeared in the indictment. Because of that heading, The Vindicator described the mayor’s conviction as pleading guilty to “attempted unlawful influence.”
He did not. McNally pleaded guilty to attempted disclosure of confidential information.