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Corruption case pretrial resumes Monday

Corruption case pretrial resumes Monday

Staff photo / David Skolnick Mahoning County Common Pleas Judge Maureen Sweeney, left, huddles with attorneys about testimony given by a witness Friday in a pretrial hearing involving ex-Youngstown Finance Director David Bozanich and developer Dominic Marchionda. The attorneys are John F. McCaffrey, who represents Marchionda; Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general; Stephanie Anderson, an assistant attorney general; and Ralph E. Cascarilla, back turned, who represents Bozanich.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

Staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — A Mahoning County Common Pleas Court judge abruptly ended the second day of a pretrial hearing into alleged corrupt activities by ex-Youngstown Finance Director David Bozanich, developer Dominic Marchionda and 10 companies associated with Marchionda.

Judge Maureen Sweeney adjourned the Friday hearing after Ralph E. Cascarilla, Bozanich’s attorney, asked for a bill of particulars — which provide more detail on the charges against the defendants — that gives the specific dates in a bribery count against his client. The charge accuses Bozanich of taking 80 to 100 free meals and country club benefits between Jan. 1, 2006, and July 31, 2013, from Raymond Briya, former chief financial officer for MS Consultants Inc. and a key prosecutor’s witness.

Sweeney ordered prosecutors to provide the dates by Monday, when the hearing will resume, and adjourned Friday’s proceedings about 12:15 p.m., about three hours after it started.

At the time, Chris Rudy, a retired fraud investigator for the Ohio Auditor’s Office, was testifying.

The only other person to testify Friday was Philip Beshara, the former president of B&B Contractors and Developers Inc., who said he gave $20,000 in cash in an envelope to Bozanich in spring 2009, while at a Boardman restaurant.

Beshara never was asked the reason why he gave Bozanich the money. But the indictment alleges he did it so the city would give grant money to Marchionda for his Flats at Wick student-housing complex project.

During cross-examination by Cascarilla, Beshara admitted he’s under FBI investigation for embezzling $1 million to $2 million from B&B and that he “suggested” subcontractors pay him money to do business with the company. Cascarilla said Beshara “demanded” the money. Beshara said he left the company in 2016. B&B is suing Beshara seeking to get money from him it contends he stole and for the alleged kickback scheme.

Sweeney stopped the line of questioning, asking Beshara if he had an attorney and if he wanted to consult with him. James Gentile, Beshara’s attorney, was in the courtroom and briefly talked to his client.

Beshara declined to answer another question about his alleged crimes, but acknowledged he has a proffer — an agreement that allows those under criminal investigation to tell the government about their knowledge of crimes without the statements used against them — with the FBI. He also said he was “not 100-percent sure about being prosecuted.”

After that, Sweeney stopped the proceedings and met with prosecutors and attorneys for Bozanich, Marchionda and the companies in a huddle near her bench. She decided to strike Beshara’s testimony — which lasted for only 15 minutes — because the judge said, “He could be prosecuted” for it.

CHARGES AND EVIDENCE

The hearing, which started Thursday, is to help Sweeney consider filings from defense attorneys seeking to dismiss the charges and exclude evidence in a 101-count indictment. The filings were not publicly disclosed, but attorneys said Friday they had to do with questions regarding the statute of limitations and the duplicity of the charges, meaning they are listed in more than one count.

The defendants have pleaded not guilty to all of the charges that include engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, aggravated theft, money laundering, tampering with records and receiving stolen property.

Rudy was questioned by Dan Kasaris, a senior assistant Ohio attorney general and the case’s lead prosecutor, largely about Marchionda and U.S. Campus Suites LLC, one of his companies under indictment. Rudy said Marchionda received a $1.2 million grant from the city’s water fund — steered by Bozanich — for the student-housing project in exchange for the developer immediately giving $1 million of it back to the city in a money-laundering scheme to buy the North Side fire station on Madison Avenue, which closed last month.

The Aug. 30, 2018, indictment alleges Bozanich wanted the $1 million in December 2009 so he could improperly move it to the city’s struggling general fund to balance the books and allowed Marchionda to use the $200,000 for whatever he wanted.

John F. McCaffrey — the attorney who represents Marchionda and nine of his 10 affiliated companies — asked Rudy about a deal reached with Stephen Garea, an attorney who previously represented Marchionda and Bozanich.

Rudy acknowledged that Garea has to testify in various criminal cases and after that, sometime in October, it will be determined if he’ll be charged with any crimes.

Upon questioning by McCaffrey, Rudy said he told Garea: “We’re not going to charge you with anything” in 2017, but said Friday he told him that because “I was trying to jolt Mr. Garea.”

AT CITY HALL

When asked later by Cascarilla about Briya’s alleged bribes to Bozanich, Rudy said, “It was to put MS Consultants at the top of the list of contractors for city projects,” and that Bozanich “had influence at city hall” to make that happen. He also called it a “quid pro quo.”

When the pretrial hearing resumes Monday, Rudy will continue testifying.

Also scheduled to give testimony Monday are Briya and Garea.

Briya pleaded guilty in September to five felonies, admitting he gave more than $100,000 in cash, meals, gifts and golf benefits to Bozanich over a decade, and at least $9,000 in cash to former Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone, who was included in the indictment but is being tried separately, to “corrupt” them in their official capacities with the city.

Briya also pleaded guilty to providing a false invoice on or about Oct. 6, 2011, to Marchionda’s Erie Terminal Place project when only about $8,000 worth of work was done, lying about that to a grand jury on or about Oct. 27, 2017, and taking between $75,000 and $150,000 from MS without the company’s knowledge over a 15-year period to “benefit himself by bribing public officials.”

Briya, Beshara and another person formed Exal Leasing LLC, which provided Bozanich with $100,000 to push a project that didn’t materialize.

The indictment states Garea is Bozanich’s good friend and convinced Beshara to give the $20,000 to Bozanich to have the city do business with Marchionda.

The indictment alleges Marchionda misspent at least $600,000 in city funds on personal items in addition to misusing money obtained from the city, state and federal governments for the Flats at Wick, Erie Terminal Place and Wick Tower downtown-housing projects.

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