Don’t Laugh At Youngstown
The Ohio Supreme Court has suspended an attorney for a criminal conviction.
Cleveland.com reported on the criminal case
The failed 2008 candidate for Mahoning County prosecutor, convicted of corruption charges was sentenced Friday to five years probation and a year of house arrest.
Martin Yavorcik, 45, will spend the next year on house arrest and is allowed to leave the house only for probation meetings, medical appointments, alcohol treatment and for work, should he find a job.
Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Janet Burnside imposed a seven-year suspended prison sentence Yavorcik will serve if he violates his probation.
Assistant Ohio Attorney General Dan Kasaris asked the judge to impose a prison term as a deterrent to corruption in Mahoning County, telling the judge that Yavorcik’s crimes are an embodiment of a culture of corruption that is part of the reason “when you tell people you’re from Youngstown, they look at you funny.”
Yavorick pleaded for leniency saying that he is already punished, by the loss of his law practice, bankruptcy and his struggle with alcohol.
“I grew up in Youngstown and I understand it looks bad … but my standing in the community has been destroyed,” he said. “My dad can’t go to Dunkin Donuts and get his coffee. I would ask the court to help me.”
Burnside said that the seriousness of the crime was mitigated by the fact that this was Yavorcik’s first criminal conviction.
“I have grave difficulties sending a 42-year-old former lawyer, in court for his first crime, for the first time, to prison,” Burnside said. “I highly question what benefit it would be to the taxpayers of any county of this state to pay for a prison bed for Mr. Yavorcik.”
She also compared Yavorcik’s crime to that of convicted former Cuyahoga County judge Steven Terry, who accepted campaign cash from then-county auditor Frank Russo while promising to dismiss a case being litigated by one of Russo’s friend.
Terry is serving five years in federal prison after his 2011 conviction.
“There is an element of Mr. Yavorcik acting under strong provocation, it’s not the usual kind of provocation, its this Judge Steven Terry piece, where they are desperate to get elected an they fall into an opportunity to get in bed with criminals,” Burnside said. “It’s likely that Mr. Yavorcik didn’t know at the time they were criminals.”
Two other Youngstown Democrats, Mayor John McNally and former county auditor Michael Sciortino, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges related to the corruption scandal. McNally testified that he accepted legal services from real estate mogul Anthony Cafaro, Sr. in exchange for efforts to stop the county from moving offices out of one of Cafaro’s strip malls.
The county eventually moved its child and family services office into the Oakhill Renaissance complex, while McNally and Sciortino, both county commissioners at the time, became the subject of an ethics investigation and later a criminal investigation.
Yavorcik hugged his girlfriend following the trial, but did not talk to reporte[rs].
I went to college in Cleveland (Case Western Reserve) and some of my favorite people in the world are from Youngstown, Ohio. (Mike Frisch)