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Ralph Infante wants evidence obtained at former home suppressed
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Former Niles Mayor Ralph Infante wants a visiting judge to suppress evidence gathered by investigators Feb. 1, 2016, at his former North Rhodes Avenue home in Niles, partly because he no longer lived there or owned it at the time.
His attorney, John Juhasz, filed a motion recently asking for a suppression hearing to also argue that the affidavit filed with the court in support of the search warrant consisted of hearsay that in some cases was “potentially quadruple hearsay.”
If a hearing shows that the affidavit contained false information, then the evidence from the home was obtained illegally and must be suppressed from evidence, the filing says. Hearsay evidence is information a person gathers from others, not what they know themselves.
The affidavit, filed by detective Mike Yannucci of the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office, said the information in the affidavit came from Christopher Rudy, an investigator with the Ohio Auditor’s Office, Juhasz said.
“Though Mr. Rudy has appeared at virtually every pretrial [hearing] in this case, [Yannucci] offers no reason why Mr. Rudy could not drive to Warren that one extra time to prepare a search warrant affidavit, and, if deemed proper, be questioned by the issuing judge,” the filing says.
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. His wife, Judy Infante, and former Niles auditor Charles Nader, are also charged in the same indictment. They are set for trial Dec. 11 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The affidavit asked to search the home at 560 N. Rhodes but “fails to mention that the home is not listed in [Ralph and his wife Judy Infante’s] name, that others live there and that others may have a privacy interest in all or portions of the home,” the filing says.
“Nor does the affidavit attempt to tie [the current residents] to any crimes that would justify the search of their premises and seizure of items therefrom,” the filing says.
The day of the search, a woman approached a Vindicator reporter taking a photo of the home and advised she was the owner of the home and that Ralph and Judy Infante no longer lived there. She said she was the Infantes’ daughter.
The filing notes that the affidavit is still sealed, so Infante could not provide a copy with his filing. Instead, Juhasz gave details from the affidavit.
In a separate filing, Juhasz asked Judge Patricia Cosgrove to unseal the affidavit so that he can fully argue his motion to suppress.
The suppression filing says Yannucci’s affidavit frequently uses the phrase Yannucci “knows from Chris Rudy” various information, but Yannucci “offers no information as to how or why the issuing judge should have confidence in Rudy as a person furnishing information.”
The filing calls “triple hearsay” a section relating to Judy Infante having left her employment at the Niles Wellness Center snack bar over a policy dispute with the facility’s bookkeeper.
It says the dispute arose because Judy Infante “insisted on taking the deposit from the snack bar home and giving it to her husband ... who would turn it over the following morning to the city auditor.”
The bookkeeper “insisted the deposit be kept at the Wellness Center overnight in the safe in the office.”
The filing says there was no evidence that the deposits were coming up short. And Judy Infante’s bringing home the snack bar receipts “is consistent with a mayor who trusts his wife but not city employees, a healthy mistrust born out by the [documented] theft of city funds by city employees,” the filing says.
The affidavit mentions a former city employee who stole $142,000 from the city, an apparent reference to former Niles treasurer’s employee Phyllis Wilson, who was convicted of stealing $142,000 from the city. The thefts were discovered by state auditors in 2012.
The filing says Wilson told Rudy she was told by a Niles water department employee he had used a city-owned backhoe to work on a swimming pool at the Infantes’ home on North Rhodes and also performed landscaping work there on city time.
The filing says the judge approving the affidavit was being asked to trust information Judy Infante was told by a convicted felon – claiming to be told something by someone else.
The filing references a section of the affidavit alleging that a Niles water employee told Rudy someone wanting a job with the city had to socialize with Ralph Infante at his bar, the ITAM No. 39 on State Street in McKinley Heights.
The filing says whether that information is true or not, hiring friends “is, as everyone in elected office knows, and as many others also know, the nature of politics.
“The late Don Hanni, the colorful longtime chairman of the Mahoning County Democratic Party, when once asked about having elected officials appoint Hanni’s friends to certain public jobs, said, “Of course I am getting my friends hired. Do you think I would try to get jobs for my [deleted] enemies?”
One filing by prosecutors from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office says investigators seized money and gambling evidence in a cigar box at the Infante residence on North Rhodes.
Another filing says that among the items investigators seized from the Rhodes Avenue home Feb. 1, 2016, was a folder marked with the name of a pool company and other pool documents.