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Antonini: Yavorcik would kill probe if elected
CLEVELAND
Lisa Antonini, former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairwoman, testified the only way she and other county officials being criminally investigated for their alleged involvement in the Oakhill Renaissance Place scandal were going to escape prosecution was to get Martin Yavorcik elected prosecutor in 2008.
“There was always the understanding Marty would kill the investigation” if elected, Antonini, also an ex-county treasurer, testified Monday.
Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general and special prosecutor on this case, got Antonini to say at least a half-dozen times that Yavorcik would get rid of the investigation if elected.
“This was a criminal investigation of myself and my colleagues at the time, and the goal was to have the investigation end by electing Marty,” Antonini said.
She called the $2,500 she gave Yavorcik during the 2008 race a campaign “donation” on the witness stand. In a presentation to Yavorcik to get him to take a plea before his indictment on March 14, 2014, however, prosecutors and the FBI said Antonini told them the $2,500 was a “bribe.”
Antonini also said Monday of Yavorcik, “If he was elected, there was an underlying understanding he would not investigate us.”
Prosecutors focused their attention on Yavorcik’s purported criminal activity. Most of the case, which started a week ago, has been to establish a supposed criminal enterprise that existed before Yavorcik ran for prosecutor as an independent in 2008.
He lost that race by 38 percentage points to incumbent Democrat Paul J. Gains.
Gains initiated an investigation into Antonini and other county officials in 2007. The contention is they – along with Anthony Cafaro Sr., then the president of his family-owned Cafaro Co. shopping center development business – illegally tried to impede or stop the county from moving its Department of Job and Family Services from Garland Plaza, owned by a Cafaro Co. subsidiary, to Oakhill.
Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center on Oak Hill Avenue.
In addition to Antonini, prosecutors say others in the conspiracy that started in 2006 included: then county Commissioner John A. McNally, now Youngstown mayor; Michael V. Sciortino, then county auditor who lost his 2014 re-election bid while under indictment; ex-Treasurer John Reardon, found guilty of ethics violations not related to Oakhill; and John Zachariah, then the county’s JFS director who admitted Friday that he lied in a deposition.
Antonini served three months in a federal prison after working out a deal in which she pleaded guilty in 2013 to a single count of honest-services mail fraud for failing to report a $3,000 cash gift on a disclosure form she mailed to the Ohio Ethics Commission. She received the money from Cafaro, who hasn’t been charged.
Antonini testified for nearly two hours, while primarily listening to secretly taped recordings of her and others. Yavorcik, an attorney representing himself, will get to question Antonini today.
Prosecutors say they will wrap up their case today, finishing with Antonini as well as hearing testimony from Reardon, FBI special agent Deane Hassman, and Kurt Welsh, Antonini’s boyfriend.
Yavorcik faces 11 felonies including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and tampering with records. Yavorcik said he’s innocent of the charges and is a victim of vindictive prosecution by Gains.
During her testimony, Antonini said she and the other county officials being investigated “were aware of political vendettas in the prosecutor’s office.”
Among those who testified, the most-explosive moments came during Yavorcik’s cross-examination of Gains even though it lasted for only a few minutes.
Yavorcik said, “You don’t like me, and I don’t like you.”
Gains said, “I don’t have feelings for you.”
But Gains said he loaned $23,000 to his 2008 campaign and speaking to Yavorcik said, “I was angry you filed,” and “angry I” had to loan the money.
Gains filed complaints with the county board of elections and the Ohio Supreme Court in 2008 to get Yavorcik off the ballot. He failed in both efforts, but beat Yavorcik in the election.
Secretly recorded tapes showed the two Democrats on the board of elections – Michael Morley and Bob Wasko, the latter is still there – backed Yavorcik in the general election.
A videotape made by Harry Strabala, a political consultant working as an FBI informant – included claims that Wasko, called “Uncle Bob” on the tape gave Yavorcik’s campaign $800 in cash to pay poll workers, and that Morley gave $200 in cash.
Antonini said that cash, along with other money put together by Yavorcik supporters, was never listed on the candidate’s campaign finance reports. It was Antonini, who now works for Wasko at his funeral home, who identified him as “Uncle Bob.”
Gains contended that Yavorcik should have been disqualified as a candidate because he ran as an independent and had resigned as an executive committee member of the county Democratic Party the day after he filed.
“I felt your campaign was a lie,” Gains said to Yavorcik.
Yavorcik said he asked Gains to hire him in the county prosecutor’s office and was rejected.
Gains said Yavorcik had resigned as an assistant Youngstown prosecutor and sued the city a few days later. The issue was Yavorcik had issues with prisoners being arrested on Fridays, being held until Monday and “charges would mysteriously drop.”
Gains said Yavorcik should have contacted his bosses – the city prosecutor and law director – rather than file a lawsuit.
“Instead, you profited from it,” Gains said.
Yavorcik received $10,000 from the lawsuit.
Yavorcik’s tax preparer testified his client tried to amend his 2008 tax return six years later to include $15,000 in income, but was rejected by the IRS.
David Blasko said that it isn’t common for a person to wait six years to amend a tax return.
But Yavorcik said people are supposed to amend returns when they realize not all revenue was reported.
Blasko said Yavorcik didn’t tell him where he received the $15,000.
The $15,000 in question was a check given in 2008 from Flora Cafaro, an executive with the Cafaro Co.
Yavorcik said the money was for a legal retainer. Prosecutors say the $15,000 was a bribe to kill the Oakhill investigation.
Prosecutors say Yavorcik used that money for a poll. Witnesses have said the poll showed Yavorcik could beat Gains, a Democrat, if he raised $100,000.
Flora and her two brothers – Cafaro Sr. and J.J. Cafaro, then its executive vice president – each gave $40,000 to Yavorcik.
The $120,000 is on Yavorcik’s campaign finance reports, but prosecutors claim the money was a bribe.