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Evidence suppression hearing set in Infante public-corruption case
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The judge in the Ralph Infante public-corruption case will hear testimony at 1 p.m. Thursday to help her decide whether to suppress evidence gathered at the home at 560 N. Rhodes Ave. in Niles.
The former mayor and his wife, Judy, owned the home in earlier years, but his attorney argued in a September filing that they did not own it when investigators raided it Feb. 1, 2016, and seized records that special prosecutors say are related to illegal gambling and the operation of ITAM No. 39 on State Street in McKinley Heights.
Infante seeks to have the evidence suppressed because the Infantes didn’t live there when the search was done.
The filing argues that the privacy rights of other people living at the home also may have been violated by the search. It says John and Michelle Sudzina, son-in-law and daughter of Judy Infante, currently own the property.
Special Prosecutor Dan Kasaris of the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, meanwhile, cited records from the Trumbull County Auditor’s Office indicating that the Infantes owned the house until July 28, 2016, as evidence that no one’s property rights were violated.
Infante, 61, is charged in a 41-count indictment with taking bribes, receiving inappropriate gifts, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, tampering with records and illegal gambling. Judy Infante and former Niles Auditor Charles Nader also were indicted.
All are set for trial Dec. 11 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, though Nader’s case was recently separated from the charges filed against the Infantes.
Meanwhile, Infante’s attorney, John Juhasz, has filed an expanded brief asking Judge Patricia Cosgrove to dismiss the indictment against Infante on the grounds that some of the allegations date so far back that bank and other records have been destroyed that Infante might have used to defend himself.
The filing says “witnesses, including the defendant’s father and former secretary, have died. Bank records have been lost. Efforts to obtain them from the banks have been met with claims that the records have been purged, no longer exist and cannot be retrieved.”
In a recent filing, Kasaris said Infante and Juhasz used a “shotgun approach” in asking that all charges be dismissed without specifying which ones involve an “undue delay” in filing charges.
Infante’s filing says there are tampering-with-records charges that relate to ethics commission reports filed as long ago as 2008, theft-in-office allegations dating back to 2006 and bribery charges dating back as far as 1995.
In his filing, Kasaris pointed to more than 20 charges in Ralph Infante’s indictment that are no more than 6 years old, including bribery, engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, soliciting improper compensation, gambling and records tampering.