Russo testifies, lives it up as day of reckoning recedes

A $3,000 dinner bill at XO Prime Steaks, a $4,000 meal for 15 or more at Mallorca -- food upstaged hookers today in Frank Russo's first day of testimony at the Jimmy Dimora trial.

"Everyone knew Jimmy liked to eat and have good food," said Dimora's former pal, demonstrating a mastery of understatement.

Ah, those were the days for Jimmy and Frank, back when they dined out four nights a week, sticking Ferris Kleem or J. Kevin Kelley or some other doormat stooge with the check. That was 2008, long ago for Dimora.

But Frank Russo, enjoying his new career as a government witness, is still out on the town.

This Friday night, Russo was living it up at Fahrenheit in Tremont, a friend who saw him there tells me. The crooked ex-auditor, in a party of four, seemed altogether unvexed by his upcoming testimony. The atmosphere at their table was more festive than funereal.

Since the FBI raided his office in 2008, I've heard about Russo enjoying his remaining freedom: checking out a street festival, heavily over-tipping in Bratenahl and watching sports at the Winking Lizard in Bedford Heights.

But Friday at Fahrenheit, Russo truly had a reason to celebrate. His first day in prison had just been put off indefinitely.

Last week, prosecutors asked that Russo's reporting date of Feb. 29 be postponed until he's finished testifying in multiple corruption trials. Judge Sara Lioi granted the request.

After Dimora's trial, the feds' star witness still has to testify against his former deputy auditor, Samir Mohammad, who's set for trial in June. Russo's services will probably also be required at the trials of lawyer Anthony O. Calabrese III, set for September, and contractor Michael Forlani, which isn't even scheduled yet.

So Russo may have been granted another year of freedom.

He has an obvious reason to stall for time: He's 62 and facing 22 years in prison. He'll get years cut off his sentence in exchange for testifying, but even so, he may not live to be a free man again.

The feds say the delay isn't intended to reward Russo. It'll save the government money. Having him stay in Cleveland is easier for the feds, who don't need to bring him back from prison in Pennsylvania every time they need him. Russo isn't only testifying, he's offered to help the investigation by reviewing and explaining documents and wiretaps. Shipping all that stuff to prison would cause "insurmountable logistical and security problems." Besides, it isn't special treatment. All the corruption defendants get to stay out of prison until their cooperation is finished.

That almost sounded logical to me, until I remembered a moment from the Nate Gray trial seven years ago. A prosecutor asked Emmanuel Onunwor, the convicted former East Cleveland mayor, where he was residing. "The Lake County jail," he testified. The feds can temporarily stash important witnesses in local jails, if they really want to.

Russo keeps buying his reprieve a few months at a time. Though he turned his county fiefdom into a jobs-for-cash machine, stole $1.2 million in cash kickbacks from the taxpayers and agreed to pay $7 million in restitution, he is still dining large.

That upsets my friend, who wonders how Clevelanders can still admit Russo into polite company. Restaurants should refuse Russo a table, he says. Sure, they might get buzz from serving a notorious guest. But they'd get more buzz from throwing Russo out. If they don't, my friend says, "Someone should throw a drink in his face."

Dimora trial a nationwide hit, thanks to CNN and Ch. 19's Puppet's Court

At first, the Jimmy Dimora trial was our tawdry local affair. The opening day got a quick mention on NPR, and that's about it for national coverage. Chicago and Detroit scandals become nationwide stories, but Cleveland's not a big city anymore, so news directors on the coasts think our scandals are strictly small-town.

Well, that's sure changed. Thank 19 Action News and its puppets.



Yes, in a mere week and a half, Channel 19 has taken Dimora's Vegas romp and sexual appetite nationwide.

Last Tuesday, it debuted "The Puppet's Court," a daily reenactment of the trial's most salacious testimony and wiretaps. The Associated Press put out a story, and pretty much everyone with a web site has joined in on the fun. Eight days later, a Google search of "Dimora" and "puppets" generates 174,000 hits.

Monday night, Dimora and his cronies really broke out. Anderson Cooper featured 19's puppets on his "Ridiculist" segment, feigning shock that a TV news station would resort to felt to get around a courthouse camera ban.

19's stunt is borrowed -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann was doing courthouse puppets nine years ago. But within the genre, the folks at 19 are innovating.



Their puppets, provided by Natural Bridges Puppets of Parma Heights, improve on Olbermann's pix on a stick. They talk, shake, sleep. They're more muppety. The dunt-dunt-dunt theme song, borrowed from the '80s courtroom show The People's Court, amps up the kitschy drama. The backdrop of an actual photo of Delmonico's Steak House behind the J. Kevin Kelley puppet in the Day 4 video adds some nice local atmosphere.

In the end, Cooper, like most of us, got lured in by the hooker hook. How could he not? "Is there room for a lady of the evening in the court of puppet opinion?" he asked. His answer: A resounding yes.

Every other media outlet in Cleveland is shaking their heads, saying they'd never resort to such shenanigans. But when the daily paper's front-page story reads like this, and a web site called clevelandescortsnews.com is tenaciously aggregating the daily's coverage -- well, as Hunter S. Thompson once said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." I say, let Action News be Action News!

Update, 1/26: From the Plain Dealer this morning: "Judge Sara Lioi individually questioned six jurors about whether they had heard media reports about the trial. Despite the judge speaking in a low voice to the jurors, she could be heard mentioning the word 'puppet.' "

Dimora's appetite, now on Facebook

Jimmy Dimora's appetite now has its own Facebook page.

"This is not actually Jimmy Dimora but rather the burning hunger that lives deep within his massive midsection," the Appetite informs us in a disclaimer.

The Appetite packs heat, plans to party in Florida with Kevin Kelley, and hits downtown, looking for a club with VIP bottle service.

It's been posting daily since Dimora's indictment, reacting quickly to the latest news, from the judge's decision that Dimora could stay on his job to reporters' entertaining standoff with armed county security guards and a door Dimora was hiding behind.

"Need good rest bc the money don't steal itself," it reports today.

Warning: As you might expect, given the sex-for-favors allegations stretching from Vegas to Independence to the Superior Viaduct, some of the Appetite's posts and reader comments are not safe for work.

The Appetite is the second Facebook presence inspired by Dimora's dance with the FBI. The Professor's "Resign Dimora, You No Good Fat Corrupt Pig" Facebook group lives on as the anonymous blogger's last surviving contribution to cyberspace.

As much as I'd love to hear from The Professor again (Hey, Professor! trickey@clevelandmagazine.com! Don't be a stranger!), the Appetite seems driven by a different sense of humor and politics -- less Daily Show and reformist liberal, more @LeBronJamesEgo and lonely conservative. Note the "waste a $1.4 billion budget" line in the Appetite's rewrite of Dimora's official county bio and the disdain for all of us who might've actually voted for the guy once.