43
Former Niles Mayor Infante faces serious criminal charges relating to public corruption during tenure
On the side
I will be on vacation next week so there won’t be a column next Friday.
One of the knocks made against U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, as he challenges Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader is he didn’t pay his full $200,000 in dues to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. An anonymous senior aide told CNN that Ryan paid about half of the amount while the congressman told me it was closer to $150,000.
In his explanation to me, Ryan said he also gave about $300,000 directly to House and Senate candidates as well as state and local parties and those running for the Ohio Legislature. Also, he said that with only four Democrats in the House from Ohio, a heavily-populated state, his financial resources had to be spread out.
It’s not anyone’s place to convict someone before they are found guilty, but things certainly look bleak for ex-Niles Mayor Ralph Infante.
When I started at The Vindicator in 1995, Niles was my first beat and I covered it for more than five years.
During that time, there were numerous rumors about Infante, but there were as many stories about alleged illegal activity by several other elected officials in Trumbull County and the people who did business with them.
Twenty-one years later, only Infante and former county Commissioner James G. Tsagaris – convicted in 2009 of taking $36,551 from Anthony M. Cafaro Sr., the former head of the Cafaro Co., and failing to report it on state financial disclosure statements in 2005 and 2006 – have been indicted among the nearly dozen public officials I was told was corrupt.
Two notes:
Other officials in Trumbull County, most notably in the 2004 purchasing scandal, were convicted of public corruption, but weren’t among those I was told about.
Cafaro did nothing illegal when he gave the money to Tsagaris.
And despite claims from Oakhill Renaissance Place corruption investigation prosecutors that Cafaro was “Mr. Big” in the second case involving that matter, he was never indicted or charged.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine made it crystal clear Tuesday that neither Cafaro nor anyone else in the Oakhill investigation will be prosecuted as that matter, nearly a decade old, has been officially put to bed.
But back to Infante.
He faces 56 criminal charges for alleged criminal activity that dates back to 1993, two years after he was first elected Niles mayor, a job he held for a record 24 years. Thomas Scarnecchia defeated Infante last year.
The charges against Infante are pretty breathtaking.
Infante always admired the former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. to the point of hero worship. If the charges against Infante turn out to be true, he makes Traficant, now deceased, look like a criminal amateur in comparison.
The indictment says Infante was the head of a criminal enterprise to “create sources of money and power” for himself “through bribery, theft in office, the misuse of city-owned property, paying employees contrary to law, gambling for profit and to hide the proceeds of illegal activity, including bribe monies, gift monies and gambling.”
The indictment alleges Infante ran an illegal gambling operation out of the ITAM No. 39 bar he owns in McKinley Heights. The bar was also indicted.
In addition to the gambling allegations, the indictment also accuses Infante of abusing his power as mayor.
That includes illegally giving favors to city officials and employees, getting free work at his house in exchange for hiring that contractor’s friend to a city job, allowing a longtime friend to run a private business on city property and use city equipment with some of the work going to Infante and his buddies at no cost.
The indictment also accuses him of using intimidation and threatening people with their jobs or elected positions if they didn’t follow his orders.
In the five years I worked in the Niles office, I saw council members challenge and defy Infante. In some cases, they were voted out of office and in other cases they were re-elected, sometimes without opposition.
But that’s politics as long as the rules are followed.
Unlike the kid-glove treatment Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Janet R. Burnside gave Oakhill’s three co-defendants – Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, ex-Mahoning County Auditor Michael V. Sciortino and failed 2008 Mahoning County prosecutor candidate Martin Yavorcik – Infante ended up with a tough judge overseeing his case.
That judge is Patricia A. Cosgrove, a retired Summit County Common Pleas Court jurist.
Judge Burnside gave one year of probation, reporting only two times, to McNally and Sciortino when the two Democrats took plea deals and sentenced Yavorcik, an independent, to five years’ probation with the first year on house arrest after a jury found him guilty of eight felonies.
Judge Cosgrove sentenced Sciortino to four to six months – he’s out now – for one felony and one misdemeanor for repeated illegal use of county computers.
She said she just couldn’t let Sciortino “get away” with his criminal activity.
Should Infante be found guilty, expect Judge Cosgrove to be significantly tougher on him as his alleged crimes are far more serious than Sciortino’s.