At Euclid's Lourdes shrine, Russo asks contractor to cover for him, feds say

How's this for a movie scene?

Last August, Frank Russo met up at the Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine and Grotto in Euclid with a retired contractor, a relative of one of his employees.

Russo knew him well. But he may or may not have known that IRS agents had already interviewed the contractor about $25,000 he'd loaned Russo and shingles he'd had hung on Russo's bathhouse. The IRS thought they were bribes in exchange for three raises for the contractor's relative.

Russo was troubled that Monday in August. He had more than prayer on his mind. Five days earlier, he'd learned that his aide Sandy Klimkowski was telling the feds he'd taken cash kickbacks from a $21 million contract.

I'll let the prosecutors' filing take it from here:

Russo told BE30 that Russo was making a list of the donations that Russo received following the death of his son approximately 15 years previously. In an attempt to induce BE30 to falsely state to investigating agents that Russo had legitimate access to large amounts of cash, Russo told BE30 that he put on the list that BE30 gave Russo a $10,000 donation. BE30 had not given Russo a $10,000 donation.

That's from Count 13 filed against Russo today, charging him with witness tampering.

If it's all true, what a moment! At a place where people pray for healing, Russo's using his dead son as a fake excuse for stashing huge amounts of kickback cash.

Update, 9/11: Rachel Dissell of the Plain Dealer identifies BE30 as Ronald Romanini, a longtime friend of Russo's. She also quotes Sister Phyllis Ann Lavelle, one of the nuns who oversees the shrine. Lavelle says the sisters knew Russo was a frequent visitor. They thought he was coming there to pray.

"That is awful," Lavelle says. "I don't know how they could do that here in a place of peace and prayer."

(photo of shrine from clevelandseniors.com)

Vince Russo, Frank's son, indicted on charges of Christmastime TV bribery

The feds have indicted Vince Russo, son of county auditor Frank Russo, on charges of being an evil, dirty Santa Claus.

OK, so that's not in the indictment exactly. The young Russo is officially charged with bribery and with conspiracy to bribe, extort, and obstruct.

The feds say Russo, 31, gave widescreen HD TVs to two Maple Heights school officials in December 2007. Allegedly, on Dec. 21, 2007, Russo got a "Business 14" to buy a 46-inch Sharp Aquos liquid crystal TV -- selling on Amazon for $1,799 these days -- which Russo passed on to board member Sandy Klimkowski to give to schools treasurer Christopher Krause, who put it in his basement. Klimkowski allegedly got a Vizio. Prosecutors think there's a connection to some of the Maple Heights schools' business transactions in 2007 and 2008.

After the FBI raided the county building and Business 14 in July 2008, Russo allegedly told Klimkowski she and Krause should "get rid of" them. Krause, not quite willing to part with that amazing high-def clarity, stashed his in a Maple Heights schools warehouse instead.

So what's Business 14? If it's the same Business 14 from the MetroHealth corruption cases, it may be Doan Pyramid, raided in July 2008 and mentioned on lots of search warrants since.

What's this mean for Clevelanders who are waiting and waiting to for the prosecutors to indict Frank Russo already? The feds are getting closer to their endgame -- they're amping up the pressure on Vince's dad. They managed to charge Vince three times for giving K&K the TVs -- bribery, bribery conspiracy and extortion conspiracy! (Shouldn't they pick one?)

Can't you see the worried father's breakdown at the 48th minute of the Law & Order episode?

"All right! I'll plead. Just... go easy on my son."

Update, 7/14, pm: Vince Russo pleaded not guilty in court today. "We intend to go to trial and defend [against] these charges," his lawyer, Bill Beyer, told reporters on the federal courthouse steps today. Beyer said there's another explanation for the TVs, which he'll reveal at trial. See the cleveland.com video here.

The indictment suggests that only the Sharp TV came from Business 14, not both TVs. I've rewritten the post to correct that.

Feds: Russo got $1.2m in cash kickbacks

"During the course of the conspiracy, PO2 received approximately $1,220,000 in kickbacks."

--From federal prosecutors' extortion conspiracy charge against former Frank Russo employee Sandy Klimkowski

Now we know how big the FBI's local corruption investigation is: Really big. The feds believe county auditor Frank Russo is a million-dollar crook.

New federal charges suggest Russo got $1.22 million in cash kickbacks over 11 years, delivered monthly in manila envelopes, in exchange for outsourcing the $21 million job of appraising every commercial property in Cuyahoga County. The alleged bag woman was Sandy Klimkowski, a top assistant of Russo's until last week. She purportedly got $154,000 in cash herself. Her lawyer says she'll plead guilty to the charges against her.

The Cuyahoga County corruption scandal has now brought our system of commercial property appraisal -- the core of our tax base -- into question. Treasurer Jim Rokakis and former auditor Tim McCormack are sounding huge alarms. This pair of stories in today's Plain Dealer suggests that the alleged conspirators may have not only corrupted the appraisal contract, they may have tampered with or influenced some of the appraisals themselves. {Update, 11/1: Richard Blake, the attorney who reviewed the county business that the investigation touches on, reported that he did not find evidence of tampered appraisals. His report is online here.}

Rokakis wants state auditor Mary Taylor and attorney general Richard Cordray to investigate. Taylor's spokesperson says she may well start a special audit of Russo's office. It's high time. Her special audit of the county recorder's office, requested by the county commissioners after Pat O'Malley left the job, found that O'Malley had wasted $1 million a year. What would Taylor find in Russo's books?

The feds haven't charged Russo or named him in the Klimkowski charges, but their code phrase, Public Official 2, is no mystery to Cleveland at this point. The description of PO2 in the Kevin Kelley charges fit only Russo, and it fits only him in the Klimkowski charges now. County commissioners Tim Hagan and Peter Lawson Jones have called for Russo to resign. So has Lakewood Mayor Ed Fitzgerald, who wants Russo's job.

{Update, 9/24: Jones and Hagan -- and Jimmy Dimora! -- have also called for Taylor and Cordray to do a special performance audit. Here's the cleveland.com story on Jones and Hagan's statements at the county commission meeting. The photo shows Dimora's seat empty -- he left the room during the discussion about Russo, but signed the audit request.}

Klimkowski also faces charges that she corrupted the Maple Heights school district while she was a school board member. She allegedly got free home improvements -- a free pool deck, a free bay window, free aluminum siding -- from Steve Pumper in exchange for help getting 20 contracts with the Maple Heights schools for Pumper's former company, DAS Construction. She and a deceased attorney for the district, Lou Damiani, allegedly arranged to use school district money to buy "electronic equipment, household items, a swimming pool heater and consumables" for their personal use.

"One effect of the conspiracy was that [the district] had fewer resources with which to serve its students," prosecutors wrote.

The new allegations were filed Friday. (Sorry I didn't write about them earlier -- I was on vacation.) Here are links to the charges and the U.S. Attorney's press release, both in pdf form.