Former Youngstown mayor Charles Sammarone, left, stands before Judge Maureen Sweeney in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, with his attorney John Shultz. Sammarone pleaded guilty to two counts of tampering with records and / or for accepting bribe money from a city contractor. Staff photos / R. Michael Semple

YOUNGSTOWN — Accused of soliciting bribes from city vendors and engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, ex-Youngstown Mayor Charles Sammarone took a plea agreement to two felony counts of tampering with records.

“It’s one of the weaker cases I’ve confronted in my career,” John Shultz, Sammarone’s attorney, said Monday.

Sammarone pleaded guilty to two counts of tampering with records for not reporting rental income derived from owning a condo in Florida on his 2012 and 2013 Ohio Ethics Commission financial disclosure statements and / or for accepting bribe money from a city contractor. Shultz insisted the former mayor was never bribed.

“I made a mistake,” Sammarone said. “I accept my responsibility.”

Sammarone, 77, got a little choked up when he said he apologized to his family for “what I’ve put (them) through this past year and a half. I apologize to the Youngstown community.”

Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Maureen Sweeney placed him on probation for five years and 30 days of supervised community service.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors declined to recommend a sentence for Sammarone.

Sammarone was facing nine counts of bribery, three counts of tampering with records and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity — all felonies — and a misdemeanor count of falsification.

Sammarone was accused of soliciting and 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.

Briya, who is cooperating with prosecutors, pleaded guilty in September 2019 to five felonies in corruption allegations against Sammarone, ex-city Finance Director David Bozanich and downtown developer Dominic Marchionda. The three — along with 10 companies affiliated with Marchionda — were indicted Aug. 30, 2018, with 101 counts.

Among Briya’s guilty pleas is an attempted bribery conviction in which he admitted to giving more than $100,000 in cash, meals, gifts and golf benefits to Bozanich over a decade, and of giving at least $9,000 in cash to Sammarone to “corrupt” them in their official capacities with the city.

CREDIBILITY

Shultz said Briya is a “self-admitted perjurer” — one of his five convictions is for lying to a grand jury on or about Oct. 27, 2017, about a false invoice he allegedly gave Marchionda.

“Seriously, I do believe that when you look at the nature, the character and the credibility issues that the prosecutor may have realized he did not have as strong of a case as he initially though he did,” Shultz said.

Dan Kasaris, the case’s prosecutor and a senior assistant attorney general, referred comment to Steve Irwin, an AG spokesman. Irwin said the office didn’t have any further comment beyond a written statement that gives basic information about the sentencing and that the “plea agreement is the latest part of an ongoing investigation in Youngstown.”

Shultz said the state “had no case on bribery.”

He added: “I would assure the court that I have been advised by Mr. Sammarone months ago that he would rather enter a plea of guilty to aggravated murder as opposed to bribery because he contends he has never taken one penny from anyone.”

Engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity — the most serious charge in the indictment — accused Sammarone of being part of a conspiracy with Bozanich, Marchionda, the latter’s 10 affiliated companies, Briya and several others.

“The reason the criminal enterprise charge was dismissed, we contended all along Chuck was not involved in that,” Shultz said. “He didn’t even really know Mr. Marchionda, didn’t become acquainted with him until they were all indicted together and we appeared for the first pretrial.”

Sweeney agreed July 25, 2019, to have a separate trial for Sammarone at Shultz’s request.

Shultz added that Sammarone “has nothing to add or enhance the prosecution’s efforts against the other co-defendants at all,” and he won’t be called as a witness if their cases proceed.

RENTAL INCOME

Shultz admitted Sammarone failed to include the rental income from his Florida condo on the state financial statements in 2012 and 2013, but reported it on his tax returns.

“If you’ve ever read the form, it’s a rather unique form,” Shultz said. “At one point it asks you to list the real estate that you own in the state of Ohio, and it is a bit confusing. But unfortunately due to the fact that he is a public officer, public officeholder, they have such a stringent penalty for failure to include anything of that nature.”

Shultz estimated the condo revenue between $1,000 and $2,000 per year for the two years.

While the indictment lists the two counts as not reporting the rental income, it also includes not reporting “bribe money from an employee of a local business,” meaning Briya, on the forms.

Shultz insisted Sammarone didn’t accept a bribe.

Shultz also had words about David Betras, an attorney and former Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, who secretly taped Sammarone and the former mayor’s son, Christopher, in 2014 to discuss getting the younger Sammarone to quit a Democratic primary that year for probate court judge. If Sammarone went to trial, Betras was to testify about the recording.

According to the indictment of the older Sammarone, he is heard on the recording “repeatedly stating that he is ‘old school’ and that ‘one hand washes the other,’ or ‘I am with the old school, one hand washes the other,’ and that ‘anything is legal if no one else knows about it. I have been around a long time.'”

Shultz said Monday that Betras “tried to incite Chuck to do something or say something that was illegal, and he never did.”

Asked why the statements were in the indictment, Shultz said, “It was done under the guise of an evidence rule to indicate some sort of character flaws on behalf of Mr. Sammarone like, ‘I’m old school,’ or ‘one hand washes the other.’ They tried to assert that in a negative fashion. I disagreed with that. I had fought that, contested it because quite frankly that’s just the way Chuck talks. That’s the way a lot of members of Chuck’s generation speaks. These are cliches and unfortunately those cliches could have been utilized negatively against him.”

Reached by telephone, Betras said, “I have no comment about what Chuck did, and John Shultz is full of s—.”

OTHERS

Meanwhile, Bozanich, Marchionda and the 10 companies are scheduled to go to trial June 1 though Bozanich has sought to have a separate trial.

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.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com