YOUNGSTOWN — The attorney for ex-Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone, who is facing a Monday trial on 14 counts, is open to taking a plea agreement.

“I think anyone’s willing to take the right plea,” said John Shultz, Sammarone’s attorney, after a Wednesday hearing. “We just don’t know if we have the right plea.”

Shultz and Dan Kasaris, senior assistant attorney general and lead prosecutor in Sammarone’s case, met behind closed doors Wednesday for more than 90 minutes.

Sammarone is charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity — the most serious count — as well as nine counts of bribery, three counts of tampering with records, all felonies, and a misdemeanor count of falsification.

After the discussion, there was a brief hearing in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in front of Judge Maureen Sweeney.

Sweeney gave the two sides until Friday to work out a plea deal or the trial begins Monday.

“If we don’t achieve a plea resolution by Friday, then we’re going to trial Monday morning,” Shultz said.

Asked about the private meeting with Kasaris, Shultz said: “We discussed several things, not only potential pleas, but the exchanges of information in the event this does proceed to trial.”

He added: “It was a very comprehensive conversation involving not only a potential resolution, but if this proceeds to trial, potential procedure issues and evidentiary issues.”

Kasaris said: “We are in plea negotiations and have been for a few days.”

Shultz said Kasaris “does want to consult with perhaps one of his superiors before there’s a definite final offer.”

Shultz and Kasaris declined to discuss details of a plea agreement.

“There’s been an exchange of a lot of of information in the last three days,” Shultz said.

Sammarone was indicted Aug. 30, 2018, along with former city Finance Director David Bozanich, downtown developer Dominic Marchionda and 10 companies affiliated with the latter. The indictment listed 101 counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, bribery, aggravated theft, money laundering, tampering with records and receiving stolen property. All defendants have pleaded not guilty.

On July 25, 2019, Sweeney granted a request by Shultz to have a separate trial for his client.

BOZANICH SEEKS SEPARATE TRIAL

Now Bozanich’s attorney, Ralph E. Cascarilla, has filed a motion asking Sweeney to have a separate trial for his client and supplemented prior motions to dismiss. That filing was done “under seal,” meaning the document is not available to the public. But a brief description of the filing is listed on the court’s website.

Prosecutors haven’t filed a response though they’ll likely object — as they did to Sammarone’s request for a separate trial.

That trial is scheduled to start June 1.

Bozanich’s request comes weeks after a hearing that stretched over five days from late January to mid-February to consider requests from the defendants, except Sammarone, to dismiss the case and charges because of attorney-client privilege, and exceeding the statute of limitations and duplicity, the latter meaning some accusations are listed in more than one count.

Sweeney ruled last week against Marchionda’s motion to dismiss and exclude some charges over the statue of limitations issue, but wrote she’d make a final decision after the state presents its case at trial. A few days earlier, Sweeney ruled that attorney Stephen Garea, a key prosecution witness, cannot testify about anything he discussed with Marchionda as his lawyer because of attorney-client privilege. But he can still testify in the trial, just not about any communications between him and Marchionda.

Marchionda is accused of misspending 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 student-housing complex as well as Erie Terminal Place and Wick Tower downtown-housing projects.

Bozanich is accused of assisting people, including Marchionda through an associate, who sought public funding for economic-development projects in exchange for money, golf fees, meals and trips exceeding $125,000.

SAMMARONE

CHARGES

Sammarone is accused of accepting $10,000 in bribes from Raymond Briya, a former MS Consultants Inc. chief financial officer, from October 2012 to July 2013 to steer city contracts to the company without the knowledge of other MS officials. He’s also accused of failing to disclose the payments along with rental income derived from owning a condo in Florida, and of making false statements about the money to state investigative officials.

While Sammarone has a separate trial, the charge of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity means that issues not related to his alleged crimes will be introduced as evidence.

During the hearing, Kasaris said the prosecution has “to get into the other acts of the enterprise” to prove the charge.

But Shultz said alleged crimes by Sammarone’s former co-defendants introduced at the ex-mayor’s case could unfairly hurt him.

“My argument is that there’s this catch-all charge in the indictment of a criminal enterprise, which there is no direct evidence whatsoever of Chuck’s participation,” he said. “However, they’re going to bring in witnesses to testify about certain alleged illegal acts committed by the former co-defendants — Marchionda and Bozanich. Even though they won’t directly testify about Chuck, Chuck is going to experience some prejudice because of that. A jury’s going to hear about all these potential bad things, may not be able to differentiate enough and separate Chuck out of it and hold that against Chuck and eventually convict him because of it.”

Shultz attempted to have that charge of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity dismissed, but Sweeney ruled Feb. 24 against the request — though she added the motion was “not appropriate to rule on at this time” and Shultz would “be permitted to raise this issue.”