Saturday, February 16, 2019
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The attorney for former Niles mayor Ralph Infante drilled down on the most serious of Infante’s 22 convictions in his newest appeals court filing, citing case law he believes shows Infante’s actions during 24 years in office did not constitute a criminal enterprise.
Infante was convicted of tampering with records, theft in office, having an unlawful interest in a public contract, gambling and falsification.
But the most serious conviction was engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, the state’s version of what the federal government calls a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) violation.
Prosecutors said Infante, now 63, used city employee Scott Shaffer, other people and the Niles Board of Control 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 ... gift moneys and gambling.”
Infante was not convicted of any of the bribery charges but was convicted of running a gambling operation and failing to report gambling and gift income to the Internal Revenue Service and/or Niles Income Tax Department for 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014.
He also was convicted of failing to report on his Ohio Ethics Commission disclosure form that he received a gift of nearly $8,000 in 2007 – tickets from Cafaro Co. executives to the 2007 National Championship football game.
But Infante’s appeals attorney, David Doughten, said the state’s “theory” of Infante’s RICO violation was that he allowed individuals to commit small offenses that benefitted Infante.
“But the jury did not convict him of those offenses that might have arguably formed an element of a conspiracy or enterprise,” Doughten said.
Instead, Infante’s convictions are “very clearly independent acts of Infante and independent of each other.”
“There may have been a chain of improper or illegal actions involving Infante, but a chain of events is very different [than] participation in an enterprise,” he said.
To be an enterprise, the individuals involved “must have ‘an ascertainable structure beyond that inherent in the pattern of racketeering activity in which it engages,’” he said. It needs to have “a purpose, relationships among associates, and longevity sufficient to permit the associates to pursue the enterprise’s purpose.”
In the Infante case, “There was no structure or organization,” Doughten said. “The other participants were not related, other than they knew Infante.” He said that “when others did assist, it was for their personal gain, not to enrich an established enterprise.”
Infante has been imprisoned since his May conviction in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. Visiting judges from the Akron based 9th District Court of Appeals will hear the appeal. Doughten asks the appeals panel to reverse most of Infante’s convictions.