Last Man Standing: My interview with Bill Mason

Just before Bill Mason left the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office this fall, he and I sat down for a final interview.  It got tense.

Others had already asked Mason why he didn't catch Jimmy Dimora or Frank Russo in the act of pocketing bribes and exploiting their office.  So I drilled deeper.  I asked about the times Mason's name came up at the Dimora trial, the wrongdoing ex-sheriff Gerald McFaul carried out in the Justice Center (where Mason also had his office), and Mason's longstanding alliance and friendship with Pat O'Malley, the former county recorder who served federal prison time on an obscenity conviction.

Mason, I discovered, remains loyal to O'Malley even today. "I'm a pretty trustworthy and loyal guy," he said. "Period." Mason said he didn't know that sheriff's deputies were illegally selling tickets to McFaul's clambake fundraisers in the Justice Center. And he denied any involvement with Frank Russo's successful efforts to push J. Kevin Kelley out of the 2003 Parma mayor's race.

The interview ranged across Mason's 14 years in office and touched on his dual reputation as a tough law-and-order prosecutor and shrewd political insider.  We talked about Mason's aggressive pursuit of the death penalty, his work fighting mortgage fraud and child porn, and his memories of the 2000 Sam Sheppard case.  As the spotlight turns to his successor, Tim McGinty, my last talk with Mason provides a look at the state of the prosecutor's office during a time of transition.

You can read my interview with Mason, "Last Man Standing," here and in the December issue of Cleveland Magazine.

Can Frank Russo please go to prison now?

UPDATED below with news of prosecutors' motion.

Two years after ex-auditor Frank Russo pleaded guilty to stealing more than $1 million from taxpayers, he's still free and living large.

I haven't heard of any Russo sightings in Tremont restaurants lately, but he's comfortably dwelling in a Mayfield Heights condo bought by his longtime housemate, Michael Calabrese, in January. Even county exec Ed FitzGerald has lost his patience, ripping the feds at a town hall meeting Wednesday for Frank's sweetheart fink deal.

Now comes word that Russo's former chief deputy, Samir Mohammad, is pleading guilty to cash-bribing sleaze.  Can Russo please go to prison now?

With Mohammad pleading Monday, only two big cases are left to go in the five-year-long Cuyahoga County corruption scandal.  Charges against Robert Peto, the former port authority board member, don't appear related to Russo at all.

That leaves the February trial of Anthony Calabrese III, who faces 20 charges, including some stemming from his alleged role in Russo and Jimmy Dimora's infamous bribe-spiked Vegas trip. (Calabrese is also accused of witness tampering to cover up possible bribes related to the county's purchase of the Ameritrust Tower.)

Prosecutors say they need Russo close by to prepare for his court testimony. But Russo should only need to testify about two alleged schemes at the Calabrese trial: a contract steered to a halfway house and an alleged property assessment fixing for a senior community in Euclid.

It's time for the feds to do their prep work.  Because it's time for Russo to start doing time.

Update, 10/15: Finally! Prosecutors filed a motion today saying Russo's cooperation is "substantially complete" and asking for a court hearing, where it can recommend a reduction in his 22-year sentence for his testimony.  They want to hold the hearing by Oct. 25.

Mason resigns 3 months early, heading to law firm

Bill Mason just gave us his two weeks notice. The Cuyahoga County prosecutor is leaving Sept. 30, three months before his term expires, to take a job in the public finance unit of the law firm Bricker and Eckler.

It’s the end of an era. The last of the Democrats who took over Cuyahoga County government in the late 1990s is on his way out.

Mason not only outlasted his peers, he helped plan their end. He savvily endorsed county reform in 2009 and helping to write the new charter that ushered every other county Democrat out of office.

Yet the old guard’s downfall ultimately hurt Mason too. The federal obscenity conviction of former county recorder Pat O’Malley, Mason’s longtime friend and ally, raised questions about his political judgment. And when federal prosecutors indicted Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo, critics asked why Mason hadn’t busted them first.

Mason loves politics, but he surely wants to be remembered for more than his political connections. His office boasted a 92 percent conviction rate as of 2008, compared with about 68 percent nationally. His almost 14 years as prosecutor include dramatic cases ranging from the Sam Sheppard civil trial to the conviction of serial killer Anthony Sowell. He chased child pornographers and mortgage-fraudsters with gusto. His cold case unit has revived several cases a decade old or more — including its investigation of serial murderer Joseph Harwell, which I wrote about in the magazine’s July issue.

Defense attorneys and some judges, meanwhile, asked whether the tough prosecutor was too tough, charging too aggressively. His staff’s many political ties, including seats on city councils across the county, also attracted criticism. It made his office an awkward fit with the county’s new ethos, where political connections among public employees are distrusted and limited by new ethics rules.

Mason announced in 2010 that he wouldn’t run again. Will-he-resign rumors -- probably spread by his foes, not his confidants – were circulating wildly that year, and Scene inaccurately predicted he’d go within months. So even without surfing the blogs, I can imagine the buzz of speculation now about Mason’s move.

But Nicole DiSanto, Mason’s interim spokesperson, makes his early departure sound as simple as the reasons your officemate might leave for a new job. “The opportunity presented itself now,” she says. “He wants to make sure the next person can come in and start taking a leadership role.”

That suggests former judge Tim McGinty may succeed Mason in October. {Update, 9/18: He will.} McGinty, the Democratic nominee for prosecutor, is a heavy favorite to beat independent candidate Ed Wade Jr. on Nov. 6. The rules for mid-term replacements are complicated. County executive Ed FitzGerald can name an interim replacement; then, within 45 days, the county Democrats’ executive committee has to pick someone to finish the term. Rather than switch among four prosecutors in five months, FitzGerald and the Democrats may just give McGinty the job early.


Previous coverage of Mason on my blog and in the magazine:

-"Office Politics," March 2012, Michael D. Roberts' column arguing that Mason's successor needs to do a better job fighting corruption

-"Mason won't run again in 2012," October 22, 2010, summarizing Mason's miserable year

-"Mason talks reform," Feb. 26, 2009, one of his first interviews about his involvement in the county charter movement

-"Annette Butler debates Bill Mason," Oct. 20, 2008, my coverage of the City Club debate from Mason's last race

Dimora, defiant in court, gets 28 years in prison

Four years and three days after the FBI raided his office and home, Jimmy Dimora sat at a table in a courthouse in Akron, with one last chance to defend himself.  And he did.

“I certainly was not part of ripping off the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County,” Dimora told the judge, his voice quiet at first. “I never took bribes or kickbacks.” He denied he was ever involved in “steering contracts, bid rigging, or the selling of jobs.”

Even after this winter’s trial, and minutes before his sentencing on 32 corruption charges, Dimora was every bit as defiant, as stubborn, as sure of his own judgment as he was three years ago, when his angry press conferences denying any wrongdoing shocked Cleveland.

“I have no regret or any type of reservation [about] anything I did,” Dimora said, his voice rising like it used to at commissioners’ meetings. “I always did it with the best intentions of Cuyahoga County in mind.”

For four years, Clevelanders have asked, why doesn’t Jimmy Dimora cooperate with the government? Why won’t he plead guilty?

“The county has lost no taxpayer money from any vote I cast, not one cent,” he said today.

Believe it or not, Dimora’s answer to the five-year corruption scandal remains the same: He still doesn’t believe he did anything wrong.

It was like stepping through a time warp, to the strange old days of two or three years ago. Dimora defended himself as he did in 2009 and 2010, when he was still in office, before the government he led was wiped out and replaced with a new one.

“If someone already doing business with the county would buy me a meal or take me to a sporting event – which is not illegal in Ohio – I disclosed it. I filed my ethics forms.”

Earlier in the day, Judge Sara Lioi had turned angry when Dimora attorney Bill Whitaker had tried to bring up those ethics forms. “Why is he accepting all these gifts?” the judge asked. “Concrete work? Valuable items? Does he think everyone wants to give him gifts? Does he think he’s entitled to them? If they are his friends, why is he voting on things that could impact them? Why isn’t he recusing himself?”

Dimora’s answer to that was to assert his integrity. The $250,000 in cash and prizes the prosecutors say he got from his contractor friends? They had no impact on his decisions, he said. 

“It didn’t bother me if someone was a friend, if I knew them, if they gave me campaign donations, or gave me a thing of value, or donated to the Democratic Party,” Dimora said. “If they were not the low bidder… they did not get my vote.”

Dimora denied taking cash from anyone in exchange for county business (he was found guilty of taking $30,000 from Steve Pumper and $6,000 from Ferris Kleem). He said he never told the county staff to circumvent regular procedures.

“It was an honor for me to serve,” he said. “I did it honestly and always put the taxpayers first and foremost in any votes I cast.” The federal government, he said, “had made a mountain out of a molehill.”

Dimora stayed angry right to the end of his 17-minute statement, when he broke down talking about his love for his wife, who had sat through two months of testimony that included details of Dimora’s serial infidelities with prostitutes and an “old friend” or two.

The judge showed no reaction to Dimora’s statement. If his lack of contrition made any difference in her decision, she didn’t say so.

“The reach of [Dimora’s] corruption was far and wide,” she said. “It caused the citizens of Cuyahoga County to lose respect for their government.”

Lioi acknowledged that Dimora was a good mayor of Bedford Heights in the ‘80s and ‘90s. “But somewhere along the way, his focus changed from the people who elected him to serving himself and his friends. Somewhere along the way, he changed.”

Under Dimora and Frank Russo’s leadership, people who wanted a county job or contract “had to pay a fee, a price,” the judge said. “They exacted their fee in different ways.” Russo wanted cash, she said. “Mr. Dimora was content to receive meals, gambling trips, home improvements, the services of prostitutes, and relatively smaller amounts of cash.

“Mr. Russo was more obvious about what he was doing,” Lioi said. Dimora’s conduct was more “insidious and perhaps even dishonest for those who paid for his help. … Sometimes he could help, sometimes he could not. Sometimes [the help was] no more than a phone call that could’ve been made by the briber just as effectively.”

In other words, the smallness of the favors he granted didn’t matter.  The bribes, the exploitation of his office, did.

“The breadth and depth of corruption of county government… was staggering,” Lioi said, “and the destruction left in its wake is incalculable.”

With that, Lioi sentenced Dimora to 20 years in prison for the bribery, extortion and fraud counts; 3 for false tax returns; and 5 for obstructing justice – 28 years in all. Dimora, 57 and in poor health, is stuck in federal prison until 2040, when he would be 85.

Dimora turned away from the judge, looked toward his family in the gallery, and shook his head.

It was a stunning sentence, one of the largest known punishments in a federal public corruption case. And the defense has a point – it is a very long sentence for someone who may have stolen nothing from the public treasury.

This week’s painstaking loss calculations in court identified only two schemes that definitely cost the taxpayers: Dimora’s maneuverings to restore $300,000 in grants for a halfway house and hire two plumbers. The two sides also argued about a decrepit parking garage the county bought for $5 million in a 2-1 vote at Dimora’s urging, but the $30,000 bribe may have merely hastened a decision the county staff was eager to make.

Compare that to Russo, who steered a bloated contract that funded $8 million in bribes, including $1.2 million in kickbacks for himself. He got 21 years and will probably get that reduced.

But there is one more difference between Dimora and Russo.

At the end of the hearing, when the judge ordered Dimora remanded to the custody of the marshals, Dimora dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. He stood and grumbled to his lawyers. His voice was quiet, across the room, but I think I heard him right.

“Bullshit,” he said. “This justice system is fucked, totally.”

He waved to his family. “See you guys. Don’t know when.”

Then he stepped, his walker clicking on the floor, past the prosecutor’s table. He turned to the two FBI agents.

“You’re good storytellers,” he said bitterly. “I hope you guys are happy. Good job. Good job.”

That’s the difference between Dimora and Russo.  Jimmy Dimora still doesn’t think he did anything wrong.

Dimora’s Last Tango in Akron: The Math of Corruption

The door opened, and Jimmy Dimora entered the courtroom, slowly, still hurt from a fall in prison, leaning on a walker that clicked with each step. Without his once-familiar beard, his face looked beaky.

He didn’t look much like the man who’d spent a dozen years as Greater Cleveland’s most powerful politician, controlling the local Democratic Party and voting on Cuyahoga County’s billion-dollar budget. Until he sat down at the defense table and took his glasses from his shirt pocket. Then, for a moment, Dimora looked like he had just 1½ years ago, sitting at the county commissioners’ table, ready for the proceedings.

The judge read the 32 corruption crimes he committed, including 22 counts of bribery and extortion. Then came a legal matter that disappointed everyone hoping for swift justice or swift mercy.

Dimora’s attorneys kicked off a marathon attempt to buy the ailing 57-year-old defendant more of a chance to get out of prison alive someday. The math of corruption took over most of the day: how much Dimora was really bribed, whether the bribe or the thing acquired by bribing him should be held against him in the judge’s “loss calculation.”

Along the way, we got our final reminders of several of Dimora’s most ridiculous sprees of greed, gluttony, and lust.

At one point, defense attorney Andrea Whitaker found herself arguing that Dimora didn’t deserve blame for all the cash paid to prostitutes during a casino trip to Windsor. “The woman -- I don’t remember her real name, her stage name was Egypt -- performed dances for various people on the trip,” she pointed out.

At another point, assistant prosecutor Antoinette Bacon insisted she had counted the hooker money right. “This is only the amount the prostitutes received to service commissioner Dimora,” she asserted.

Later, the talk turned to food. “The value of the bribe should be the full value of the Delmonico’s dinner,” Bacon argued.

The Beanie Wells jersey Dimora bid $3,600 on at a Cornerstone of Hope auction also made an encore appearance. Whitaker argued it was only worth $200, since it’s only attracted $50 on eBay. (Update, 7/31: Maybe I misunderstood. There are many, many Beanie Wells jerseys on eBay, and none are fetching $3,600.)

The prosecutors had run up the score, putting their “loss calculation” at a massive $3 million. Dimora’s attorneys fought back using the few arguments left in his tattered defense: that he’d only put a good word in for his friends, not steered any contracts; that he hadn’t done anything that cost the county money.

With some schemes, Judge Sara Lioi agreed. In the sex-for-favors conviction involving Bedford courts employee Gina Coppers, prosecutors wanted to include Coppers’ salary as a “loss.” The defense countered that Coppers has actually been a good employee. Lioi sided with Dimora on that, holding him liable only for the $121 cost of the room at the Holiday Inn in Independence where he rendezvoused with Coppers.

All the while, Dimora’s family took up two rows in the courtroom gallery, wife and kids in front. Behind them sat the extended family: a row of seven Italian-looking guys and one woman, a sort of peanut gallery that scoffed when Bacon made an especially strident argument or Lioi added another dollar figure to Dimora’s tab. At one point, the judge held Dimora liable for $6,000 that businessman Ferris Kleem gave Frank Russo as part of the three men’s conspiracy. “What’s Jimmy got to do with that?” a relative exclaimed.

Dimora’s argument that his corruption hadn’t tapped the county treasury held up well, with two exceptions. Lioi ruled that county judges had decided to deny the Alternatives Agency halfway house any more funding, until Dimora called the chief judge and talked him into giving it another $300,000. And Jay Ross, former central services director, hadn’t wanted or needed to hire two union plumbers during a budget crisis, but Dimora had ordered him to, the judge recalled.

“Mr. Dimora gave new life to, resurrected, recreated Alternatives Agency [funding] and the plumbing positions on his own,” the judge said.

By the end, the defense had knocked the prosecutors’ $3 million “loss calculation” down to $451,000. That may inch him down a bit in the sentencing guidelines – or it may not, says Mike Tobin, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor.

A gloomy buzz passed across the gallery when Lioi said the sentencing hearing would go into tomorrow. But first, the defense called five character witnesses, to revive an even more tattered part of Dimora’s defense – Jimmy the nice guy.

The witnesses all described the Dimora that Cleveland’s political culture was still willing to recall three years ago when I reported my profile of Dimora, “Life of the Party.”

Old family friend Andrew Getner testified that Dimora “never missed a funeral” and remembered his relatives’ names after not seeing them for 20 years. Dimora’s daughter and next-door neighbor portrayed him as a loving family man.

William J. Day, a lawyer from Brecksville, testified that Dimora had gotten his developmentally disabled son jobs with the county recorder and auditor’s offices (Frank Russo’s office, I presume). Was his son still working there? Day was asked. “No, the new regime has slaughtered thousands of employees,” Day replied.

Bedford Heights city council president Phillip Saunders started strong, describing how Dimora smoothed over tense race relations when African-Americans moved to town in the ‘80s. But soon he was reduced to raving about Dimora’s friendliness with seniors at the Jimmy Dimora Community Center and his schmoozing ways on the rubber-chicken circuit. “Jimmy Dimora could eat!” Saunders exclaimed. “He was eating pancakes, two or three dinners a day, because he had to go to these programs.”

Dimora's party patio: photos from the FBI raid

At last we get to see Jimmy Dimora's bribe-furnished back yard and patio, the unofficial retreat of the old Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in-crowd.

Dimora and his lawyers didn't want you to see these photos, taken by FBI agents on their July 28, 2008 raid. But Judge Sara Lioi ruled that the public has a right to see them.

Most of the stuff in these photos, the judge noted, was "given by contractors identified at trial who were seeking county business." For instance, the brick work for the outdoor kitchen, including the bricks framing this pizza oven, came courtesy of contractor Nicholas Zavarella.

The patio roof and barbecue shelter came from Dimora buddy Steve Pumper, in exchange for several favors, including the county's sped-up $5 million purchase of a crumbling parking garage.

"Because a jury has found that these improvements and other things of value were obtained at the expense of the public—who had an expectation that their public officials would make decisions regarding the awarding of public contracts free from considerations of personal gain—the public has a vested interest in discovering the truth of these improvements and other things of value," the judge wrote.

Too bad the pool was covered when the feds stopped by.

A pretty nice back yard, huh?  Yet I'm disappointed by one thing.  The federal charges said Dimora got a tiki hut from a guy named Charles Randazzo.

At trial, Randazzo clarified it was actually a tiki bar. This appears to be it.

What a let-down!  I expected way more Polynesian kitsch: carved wooden fright heads, spears, a fake palm tree, a thatched roof ...

Aha!  That's more like it.

But this shot isn't from Dimora's house.  "Photograph of artificial palm tree in Frank Russo's backyard," says the caption in the evidence list.

At last we know: Frank Russo is the true luau king of Cuyahoga County.

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."

Take the Dimora scandal tour with me & Ch. 3

Scandal tourism used to be an overlooked niche in Cleveland's visitor economy, but not anymore.

Not after Channel 3 reporter Amanda Barren interviewed me about the hot spots featured in the "Map of the Fallen Stars," my guide to the Jimmy Dimora trial and the Cuyahoga County corruption scandal.

Check out the video from yesterday's morning show. Then read the "Map of the Fallen Stars" in the January issue of Cleveland Magazine, or online here, for my advice on how you can live it up like Dimora and Frank Russo on your next extravagant, yet discreet, staycation.

Also, follow the link to Channel 3's page about my appearance and let me know if you see what I see: an ad for the Mirage in Las Vegas. ("Stay 2 nights and receive a $65 dining credit!") I guess AdChoices has been following the Dimora trial too.

No more mirrors: My profile of Nailah Byrd, Cuyahoga County's new inspector general

Down at the Dimora trial in Akron, it's Day 3 of Cleveland's tawdry, FBI-filmed reality show, "Jimmy and Frank Do the Mirage."

But up in Cleveland, things have changed.

Frank Russo's giant wall-length mirror is gone from his old office. So are Russo's black lacquer credenza and leather couches and chairs. And in Russo's old office sits Nailah Byrd, Cuyahoga County's first inspector general, whose job is to bring sunlight and transparency to the government.

Byrd is the taxpayer’s watchdog at the county building, the enforcer of a new ethics ordinance and an independent investigator of alleged wrongdoing in the government. She's one of Cleveland Magazine's 30 Most Interesting People for 2012. And if you think she looks familiar -- yes, she's the daughter of former Cleveland schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett.

“When I first started, you hear the whispering as you walk down the hallway,” she told me. “Is she the inspector general? What is she going to do? Why is she here?”

You can read my profile of Byrd here and in the January issue of Cleveland Magazine.

Dimora defense: ‘It was his job’

Jimmy Dimora’s attorney Andrea Whitaker previewed an aggressive defense in her opening statement at trial today.

The defense strategy: Admit that Dimora took gifts from friends. Deny that he ever took cash. Admit that Dimora did favors for people as county commissioner. Deny that he ever did anything official in exchange for anything.

“Jimmy did help these people,” Whitaker said. “That was his job.”

The line became a refrain in Whitaker’s punchy, hour-long statement. “It was his job to let people know about the county red tape and procedures, the things they needed to do,” she said. “It was a perfectly legitimate part of commissioner Dimora’s job, the job of everyone in the county, to respond to these requests.” He helped friends, Whitaker claimed, according to the “same criteria” he applied to everyone else.

Much of Whitaker’s argument echoed the defense Dimora articulated himself in 2008 and 2009: He awarded contracts to the low bidder, based on advice from staff. People asked him for help all the time. He reported all the gifts and meals his friends bought him on his state ethics reports.

Whitaker disputed the prosecution’s depiction of the case as a secret world. Dimora’s friendships were out in the open, she said.

“The government has confused friendship with corruption,” she argued. “The government has confused Jimmy Dimora with Frank Russo.”

Whitaker said the defense is going to call several county employees as witnesses, to testify that several of the contracts, loan extensions, and so forth in the indictment were awarded legitimately, following proper rules. She insisted that businessman Steve Pumper’s assertion that he bribed Dimora with $30,000 is a lie.

“The evidence will show you Jimmy Dimora never received cash from anyone,” she said.

Whitaker signaled that the defense will attack the bribery charges by questioning whether Dimora received gifts in return for anything, and whether some of the “official acts” he’s alleged to have undertaken for the gifts were really official parts of his job.

This could be the core of the case. Earlier, prosecutor Antoinette Bacon asserted that an official act included not just votes, but scheduling or attending meetings, asking other public officials for help, and other informal nudges and recommendations. Whitaker objected, and Judge Sara Lioi reminded the jury that she, not Bacon, will tell them what the law is.

Starting with the less dramatic charges, Whitaker went through the stories Bacon had told about Dimora and the alleged conspirators and argued that several of the things of value Dimora received were gestures of friendship. With the Beanie Wells jersey, for instance, she argued that William Neiheiser paid for it because he and Dimora had been drinking at a Cornerstone for Hope charity auction, and Neiheiser felt bad that he’d egged Dimora on to bid $3,600 he couldn’t afford.

Other times, Whitaker argued that Dimora had used his influence legitimately. She said Dimora had recommended friend Gina Coppers for a job at the Bedford Municipal Court, not in exchange for her having sex with him, but because she had worked for him as senior citizens department director when he was mayor of Bedford Heights.

When taped phone calls are played in the trial, Whitaker asked the jury, “Listen for examples of Jimmy Dimora depriving the citizens of Cuyahoga County of his honest services in exchange for things of value. Listen to them over and over.” They won’t hear any examples, she said.

“Jimmy Dimora is not guilty of being a corrupt politician,” Whitaker concluded.

(Note to concerned readers: Don’t worry, I’m not violating the judge’s ban on blogging in the courthouse. I’m writing from a coffeehouse a block away.)

No smoking gun as Dimora trial opens

“This trial will take you into a world [filled] with bribery, with fraud, with conspiracy, with obstruction,” said prosecutor Antoinette Bacon, kicking off her opening statement today in the Jimmy Dimora bribery trial.

Across the room, the former Cuyahoga County commissioner turned his head to listen. His cheeks were shorn, his familiar beard gone, leaving his face looking pointy, stern, downcast.

Bacon argued that Dimora and ex-auditor Frank Russo took cash, sold jobs, tried to fix court cases, and came up with “short cuts to give some an unfair advantage over others.” Bribes, she said, helped make Dimora’s back yard “a private luxury retreat.”

“Dimora and Russo realized that some people were willing to buy [their] power,” Bacon argued. “Sometimes, Dimora and Russo were willing to sell.”

Bacon’s opener, in federal court in Akron, included no smoking gun, no single incident in which Dimora was caught explicitly making a gifts-for-favors deal. (Underwhelmingly, she promised the jurors they’d hear phone calls in which Dimora “says something like, ‘If he gets the work, he’ll buy dinner.’”)

Instead, the prosecution is planning a long march through a complex story, overwhelming in its detail. Bacon alleged a conspiracy involving 18 people, and displayed photos of them, one by one, arranged in a pyramid with Dimora and Russo at the top. It took her an hour and 40 minutes to get through it all.

The most vivid story Bacon told, of course, was set in Las Vegas. Her PowerPoint flashed color photos of Dimora’s entourage frolicking in a private cabana at Bare, the Mirage Casino’s exclusive pool. A grainy surveillance photo showed Dimora at the Prime Steakhouse; the $2,200 dinner check was reproduced next to it.

Bacon told jurors they will see video of businessman Ferris Kleem giving casino chips to Dimora. She played a phone recording of Dimora thanking Kleem for sending the “chatty” masseuse (an alleged prostitute, named Suzanne) to his hotel room. In another call, at the trip’s end, Dimora thanks Kleem for his “generosity.” During the trip, Bacon said, Dimora was calling Cleveland, inquiring about Kleem’s bid for a $38 million contract at the juvenile justice center. (Kleem didn’t get the contract.)

Over and over, Bacon yoked Dimora to Russo, his corrupt former friend now facing 21 years in prison. She said they had “an unspoken and unwritten sort of set of rules, almost a conspiracy handbook.” Rule #1, she argued: Only deal with people you trust. #2: Sometimes use an intermediary, a bag man. Dimora’s co-defendant, Michael Gabor, played both roles in several schemes, she charged. #3: Cover your tracks.

That’s what she said Dimora and Co. did after word of the FBI probe leaked in May 2008. She showed jurors checks that Dimora’s wife wrote to contractors who worked on the Dimora home the same day agents confronted businessman Steve Pumper. The prosecutor described Dimora, Russo, and Gabor meeting for breakfast to hear the news or react to it, and Dimora, county employee J. Kevin Kelley, and union leader Robert Rybak meeting in a post office parking lot at night to talk about how they’d react if the FBI swooped in.

Bacon’s statement included two more new revelations. One is that Dimora got a U.S. senator to write a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Romania about a visa application. The applicant’s friend, John Valentin, allegedly did work on Dimora’s house to reward Dimora. The senator, who was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote the letter in 2007. That means it's probably George Voinovich. He was on the foreign relations committee; Sherrod Brown wasn't.

-Adrian Maldonado, who was the county’s head of procurement and diversity in early 2008, is becoming an important figure in the trial. Maldonado had a lot of say in the more minute aspects of evaluating contract bids, since he ruled on whether bidders’ subcontractors were qualified for the job. In one phone call Bacon played, Pumper, who was trying to get work for his company Green-Source, says, “Adrian tells me right now it’s purely political. If you can convince Jimmy to hold off [on rebidding a job], he’ll do it.”

(Maldonado spoke to me for my 2009 profile of Dimora, “Life of the Party.” “If Jimmy Dimora is invested in an issue, he wants to know all the details,” he told me. “Did we do everything we needed to do? Does the aggrieved party have another shot at something else? The second bidder, is he clean?” Dimora or his aides might ask if a contract can be rebid, he said, or they might ask what the law says about the bidding process. “He never said to me, ‘Adrian, your job is on the line,’ ” Maldonado says. “He never asked me to do anything I might be ashamed of.”)

Jurors also got to see a lot of pictures of Dimora’s back yard patio, decked out with gleaming silver appliances and new wood furnishings with granite countertops. They got a long look at a photo of Dimora’s Beanie Wells jersey.

Bacon described the trial to come as a “journey” through a “dark world,” and promised to introduce the jurors to “travel guides” who’ll walk them through it, including Frank Russo.

(Note to concerned readers: Don’t worry, I’m not violating the judge’s ban on blogging in the courthouse. I’m writing from a coffeehouse a block away.)

Map of the Fallen Stars: Our handy guide to the Dimora trial

Jury selection starts today in the Jimmy Dimora trial, an ordeal that may last all winter.

Prosecutors plan to introduce more than 1,000 exhibits to try to prove that the former county commissioner committed 34 crimes, from bribery to obstruction of justice. Dimora's lawyers will likely argue that the feds are mistaking friendly gestures for bribes and favors. They may have simplicity on their side: They have one defense exhibit. (Doesn't that make you wonder what it is? What single object possesses the power to create reasonable doubt?)

To help you understand the trial better, Cleveland Magazine has assembled a handy tourist map to the locations made famous by Dimora, star witness Frank Russo, and the federal agents who tapped their phones. From Delmonico's, the home of the 22-ounce cowboy steak, to the shrine where Russo prayed for an alibi, we've assembled a fun and frolicking Hollywood-style tour, a slim yet valuable guide to Jimmy and Frank's Cleveland.

You can read our "Map of the Fallen Stars" here or in the January issue of Cleveland Magazine.

Update, 1/9: I take back what I said about simplicity. Dimora's lawyers have delayed the trial by filing an appeal, arguing that his October indictment on new charges amounts to double jeopardy. Update, 1/11: Appeal rejected. Opening arguments tomorrow.

Russo stickers will go, starting tomorrow, ending era of gas-pump shame

You won't have Frank Russo to deface anymore. Starting tomorrow, with a ceremonial restickering at the Get Go in Parma, the county's weights and measures department will efface the egomaniacal seals adorned with the former county auditor's lying, million-dollar-bribe-taking smile.

For 13 years, Russo affixed his self-image to every gas pump, cash register and scale in Cuyahoga County in a bid for perpetual name recognition and re-election. It was a sign of how our fair county was different, how once-obscure elected offices became fiefdoms protected by personality cults, patronage, and one-party rule.

(Perhaps you've noticed, traveling around the state, that one can pump gas in Ohio's other counties without learning what their auditor looks like. My favorite seal, in Wood County, south of Toledo, shows off the lovely 1890s courthouse in Bowling Green, not Wood's esteemed and humble auditor, Michael Sibbersen.)

Now Ed FitzGerald, savvily searching for symbols to show the new charter government has brought real reform, has targeted the biggest symbol of all. His press secretary just sent out a proud press release about tomorrow's 2 pm debut of the new sticker. No image has been released yet, but I'm betting on something self-effacing: the county government's logo of intertwined C's, perhaps, or the peculiarly 9 1/2-sided county map.

Update, 3/16: No face or logo on the seals at all, but it does say FITZGERALD in pretty large type.



It's the end of an era -- and the end of one of Jimmy Dimora's bad jokes, one I cringingly recorded in "Life of the Party," my 2009 Dimora profile. "Every time I see Frank," Dimora would tell crowds, "I get gas."

Why didn't the Plain Dealer catch county corruption?

Doris O’Donnell, one of Cleveland’s best reporters of the mid-20th century, asked the question first. Why didn’t the Plain Dealer expose Cuyahoga County’s corruption before the FBI?

“The reporters had to be pretty goddamn lazy if they didn't know that Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo have been living on the hog for 10 years,” the retired reporter raged to Scene in 2008, after federal agents raided the county building. “How can they get away with those houses and that real estate company without anyone knowing?”

The ten houses Russo bought and sold, some for upwards of $400,000. The 619 gift-givers and 389 free meals Dimora meticulously reported to the state over 11 years. Why no stories about them before the FBI noticed?

Now, Ted Diadiun’s spent 4,729 words trying to answer the question. His review of the paper’s county government coverage in last Sunday’s paper wasn’t as harsh as O’Donnell’s. The PD wasn’t lazy before 2008, the reader representative wrote, but it was guilty of “sins of journalistic omission -- the failure to follow up leads, to cultivate sources and mobilize resources, to report aggressively on matters of keen public interest rather than accepting business as usual.”

Diadiun’s final verdict was fair and tough. But his story starts slow, leaving the best stuff toward the end. Fascinating details hang in the air, their implications never nailed down. Here’s my guide to the highlights – or, really, the lowlights.


The paper’s old hands let Gerald McFaul off easy. Dick Feagler, former columnist for the PD and the Cleveland Press, offered one of the story’s most honest and disappointing quotes:

I knew Gerry McFaul back in the old days. I knew he was probably playing fast and loose . . . but I think my mind was that that's the way the system was. I don't remember anyone fainting with shock when they found out that the sheriff was taking kickbacks.

Brent Larkin, the paper’s political sage and editorial page editor, also missed a possible chance to catch McFaul. Diadiun writes:

Larkin had a friendly relationship with the former sheriff. … One of [Mark] Puente's sources said that he saw Larkin jocularly talking to McFaul at public gatherings and concluded that he'd better keep whatever information he had about McFaul to himself. Larkin was just doing his job as a columnist by getting out and about, but that's not the way it appeared, at least to this potential tipster.

Diadiun cuts Larkin too much of a break here. He notes that Larkin wrote a column accounting for his failure to see McFaul’s true character, but he doesn’t quote this key line from Larkin’s piece:

There were periodic rumblings about the aggressive fund-raising tactics surrounding McFaul's annual clambake. But the overwhelming consensus in town held that McFaul was a pretty good sheriff.

Turns out those clambakes were a big story. Investigators say McFaul made deputies spend 500 hours a year selling tickets to them on county time. Also, McFaul pocketed $50,000 in cash over 10 years from souvenirs he sold at them. Oops!

The paper published warnings about Dimora and Russo’s character – then took its eye off them. Diadiun starts by summing up decades of the paper’s Dimora, Russo, and McFaul coverage. The PD ran tough pieces that foreshadowed today’s corruption scandal: 1992 reports on the political mini-machine Dimora assembled in Bedford Heights, coverage of Russo’s guilty plea to misdemeanor dereliction of duty in 1998.

But that sharp coverage begs the bigger question. When Dimora and Russo survived those scandals and became the local Democratic Party’s most powerful leaders, why didn’t alarm bells go off in the newsroom? Why wasn’t the paper watching to see if they’d cut corners on a bigger scale?

Doug Clifton hunted corruption at the city, not the county. For years, the paper had only one reporter covering Cuyahoga County government, Diadiun reminds us. That inevitably reflects on Clifton, editor from 1999 to 2007.

Clifton hangs the reporters who held that beat out to dry. “We had people covering the county, and if they’d been doing their job, they should have been looking into it,” he told Diadiun. Yes, but guidance and resources come from the top.

Chris Quinn, now metro editor, defends Clifton by saying he woke up the paper and took on more serious journalism. True, but he’s reminiscing about the good old days when Clifton set Quinn and Mark Vosburgh loose to aggressively cover Mike White’s third term as mayor. Meanwhile, the county attracted less challenging coverage.

(Of course, Clifton’s hardly alone. Local media attention shifted from City Hall to the county building about three years ago, when the commissioners tried to launch a building boom with taxpayer money. I’ve written about this shift before, and I include myself: I moved here in 2000 and started reporting more about the county and Dimora in 2007. I first heard about Dimora’s gift lists in 2005, and looking back, I wish I’d sent away for them and asked, is this normal? Who are these people?)

What changed? Susan Goldberg – and Jim Rokakis. The Cuyahoga County treasurer outed himself to Diadiun as the corruption scandal’s super-source:

The politification of the county was complete, and in plain sight. All you had to do was match up the hiring rolls with the lists of precinct committeemen. This has been going on for years. As I told Susan Goldberg in my first lunch with her after she got here, this county was Sodom and Gomorrah.

Goldberg took Rokakis’ advice, Diadiun implies, and launched patronage exposés of Frank Russo’s and Pat O’Malley’s offices.

Rokakis also said the FBI interviewed him about county government in 2000, 2004, and 2005 – further evidence that, unlike the Plain Dealer, the FBI never took their eye off Russo after his 1998 conviction.

Rokakis has won a lot of praise for his honesty and conscientiousness in a corrupted county. Now we can add one more thing. When Rokakis knew, or suspected, that Russo was corrupt, he didn’t go along to get along. He blew the whistle to both the feds and the press. For reporters, that’s further proof of the importance of good sources.

Lanigan & Malone mock PD's corruption blues

The guys on the Lanigan & Malone show were making fun of this Plain Dealer story today. Two shrinks tell a health reporter that the county corruption scandal has plagued Clevelanders with feelings of anxiety, betrayal, disillusion and doom.

The radio guys didn't buy it. Jimmy Malone mocked the idea that anyone would see a psychologist because their county government was crooked.

That gave Chip Kullik an opening for a Dimora-in-Vegas joke.

"I did see someone about this," Kullik quipped, "but she was too chatty."

To be honest, the PD piece does read kind of like the bogus trend stories Jack Shafer of Slate is always ripping into. It's based on only two sources. Neither psychologist actually says the latest Frank Russo or Jimmy Dimora news has sent any of their patients spiraling into depression.

A quick reference to "those more at risk, those who have ties to the scandal" almost hits upon a truer trend. The corruption defendants themselves are frequently depressed. When they plead guilty, they have to tell the judge all the medications they're on. Many mention anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs, sleep aids. One or two have even said they're seeing a doctor to cope with the psychological consequences of their crimes.

But the average taxpayer won't have sympathy. Clevelanders' common reaction to the scandal isn't anxiety or despair. It's anger. Fury that so few people tried to blow the whistle on Russo. Rage because Dimora still has a job. But we know how to channel our anger at government constructively. Six candidates for county executive want to help us work through it. A voting booth will be more healing than a shrink's couch. Coincidentally, voting by mail starts today.

County exec candidates talk corruption on Dimora’s day of reckoning

At the very moment Jimmy Dimora was pleading not guilty to 26 corruption charges on Wednesday, the six candidates for Cuyahoga County executive were sharing a stage at a forum in Lyndhurst. Moderator Steve Gleydura, Cleveland Magazine’s editor, asked them how they’d drive corruption out of the county government.

Lakewood Mayor Ed FitzGerald stressed his credentials as a former FBI agent investigating crooked Chicago-area politicians. He described feeling “déjà vu” while watching Dimora’s arrest on TV.

“Greed – that is the fundamental motivation behind these crimes,” the Democrat said. “You have people in leadership positions that either went into public service for the wrong reasons, or they forgot why they went into it in the first place. What happens when you set that example at the top is, it gives tacit permission for all kinds of misconduct below those levels.”

The FBI can’t clean up a dirty government by itself, he warned. “They pick out specific instances of federal violations, and that’s it. They don’t look at whether an employee is maybe cutting time on clock, or misusing a county computer, or just isn’t motivated or is going through the motions. Those things have to be done by management.”

FitzGerald said he’d set up a “completely transparent” hiring process the day after the election and fill the new county administration with people chosen for their knowledge, not connection. “If we set high ethical standards and bring the right team in, we can turn this situation around.”

The forum, held at Executive Caterers at Landerhaven, took place at lunchtime Wednesday. Most of the audience knew Dimora had been arrested early that morning, though news outlets were still sifting through the details of the 138-page indictment. Tim McCormack, on the other hand, sounded like he’d already read the indictment and noticed FitzGerald's cameo appearance as Public Official 14, taking a brief 2008 call from Dimora about the lease of Lakewood's Winterhurst ice rink.

“Bad people knew where there’s a weak spot,” McCormack said. “They do not approach and they don’t do business with bad administrations. You set that standard every single day in the way you use your voice, your telephone calls, your practices. It happens every hour of the day. That’s how you root [corruption] out and avoid it in the future.”

McCormack, who once served with Dimora on the county commission, made the startling suggestion that “hundreds of additional people” may have “paid bribes to secure county positions.” It was hard to tell whether to take the comment literally, since McCormack based his comment on “information” from a source he didn’t name. (He recently said the FBI asked him around 2000 about rumors of a jobs-for-bribes scheme in former auditor Frank Russo’s office.)

Republican candidate Matt Dolan also swiped at FitzGerald. Better ethics, he said, starts with not electing a county executive candidate who “stood shoulder to shoulder with the current establishment and did not support Issue 6 county reform.” Dolan described his proposal to establish a bipartisan committee to screen appointees for all county boards and commissions. The committee would set qualifications, sift resumes, and examine whether to abolish any boards or commissions entirely.

“We’re going to do something brand new, unfortunately, in this county: we’re going to require job descriptions for everyone,” Dolan added. “If you are not qualified to do the important work, you will be removed.” He also hinted at Russo’s recent reassignments of workers caught in the Board of Revision scandal. “We are not going to shift people around,” he said. “If you breach the public trust, you’re not qualified, you’re fired! No longer are we going to be moving them to back rooms.” Dolan also said he’d institute an ethics policy by executive order on his first day in office.

Independent Ken Lanci cited his proposals for employee ethics training and an office to regulate and register vendors, lobbyists and consultants doing business with the county. Stressing his experience as a business turnaround expert and his many recent conversations with county department heads, he also said the new executive would have to inspire the county’s ethical employees.

“Everybody thinks they’re corrupt,” he says. “I can tell you, there are a lot of extremely qualified, very good employees, in this county. So don’t be confused by what you saw this morning. There’s 8,000 people there, you probably have 7,500 people that are pretty honest. It’ll be up to the CEO to turn their attitude around, make them proud of the job that they have.”

Don Scipione, also an independent candidate and businessman, said he endorsed the recommendations of the county transition work groups on ethics and campaign finance reform: limits on campaign contributions to county candidates (none exist now), ethics training for county workers, and “online transparency of the relationship between vendors and campaign contributions.” (Scipione served on the campaign finance transition group before resigning to run for county executive.)

Green Party candidate David Ellison, the last to respond, changed the subject to encouraging collaborations among “all the people who have the answers.” He warned that the county faces a $19 million deficit, which could worsen if the state’s $8 billion budget shortfall causes it to cut funds to counties. “We may have to get rid of people we don’t want to get rid of,” he said. “We might be good, thorough house cleaners of the ethical problems and still have to get rid of more people.”

Russo, with family in first row, pleads guilty, accepts 21 years on 21 counts

Frank Russo walked into the courtroom with a stunned look on his face. His mouth hung slightly open. His dark eyes, magnified by glasses, looked big, fixed on a middle distance.

He stepped forward to the first row of seats, where his family awaited. On the left, daughter Richelle Russo Reed, aka Public Employee 3, a former county engineer's employee who got raises in exchange for her dad's favors to others. On the right, his housemate, Michael Calabrese, aka PE55, named in search warrants seeking a true accounting of their household income. Between them sat three other young women, one with her arm around a young man, and an older woman.

Russo walked up and smooched his daughters. "See you soon," he said. For a second, he managed a tiny smile, an echo of that big grin we've all seen on his cash-register and gas-pump stickers.

"All rise," the clerk called. Russo's eyes stayed on his family for one split second after everyone else in the courtroom turned.

Judge Kathleen O'Malley asked him countless questions about his rights and his health. Russo answered, his voice high-pitched and a little scratchy. Sometimes you could hear a hint of liveliness, of the happy-go-lucky personality that once charmed so many political insiders. I remembered what one politico said to me last year -- before the tale of the $1.2 million in bribes, back when there was still a chance for reasonable doubt. "If you met him, you'd like him," the guy said.

The judge asked Russo to describe his former job.

"I was Cuyahoga County auditor," Russo said. "The main responsibility was setting property values. We sold dog licenses, [handled] estate tax. ... Basically educating the public on what's going on in the county."

O'Malley asked if he'd resigned because of the plea agreement.

"Yes, your honor," Russo said, his voice dropping.

Prosecutor Ann Rowland rose to describe the deal, which the judge repeatedly called unusual. The federal government had agreed not to bring any charges against Russo's daughters or housemate. Also protected were Adelbert "Chip" Marous (Richelle Reed Russo's fiancé) and Marous Brothers Construction Inc. Prosecutors also agreed not to bring any further charges against Russo's son, Vince. In exchange, both Frank and Vince Russo would plead guilty.

Then came the big reveal. On 21 counts of corruption, Russo had agreed to spend 21 years, 10 months in federal prison.

He won't have to report until May 16, 2011. The judge asked Rowland to explain why. It was at Russo's request, she said: "Quite frankly, in the defendant's own words, 'It amounts to a life sentence.'" Russo is 60. He wants to be free for a while longer, until some expected grandchildren are born, until a few other family events.

"No substantial assistance reduction is contemplated in the plea agreement, correct?" the judge asked.

"Correct," Rowland replied -- confirming that Russo refused to testify against Jimmy Dimora or anyone else, even though it would've earned him less prison time.

Finally, the judge asked Russo to rise. Five times, she asked for his plea: to two kinds of bribery and to bribery conspiracy, witness tampering and tax fraud.

"Guilty," he said each time, his voice alternately sad, flat, and defeated.

When court adjourned, he sat at the table, signing court papers. His family gathered to wait for him.

Any criminal defendant, if he's lucky, has family in court on his day of reckoning, someone to support him despite his crimes. But listening to the bargain he'd struck, and the bargain he'd refused to strike, all to protect those close to him, I thought about how Russo is headed to prison with his intense, perverse sense of loyalty intact.

His employees were like family -- he gave them security and they gave him loyalty, though it sometimes came in the form of cold cash. Dimora is like family, someone he won't betray. His circle of loyalty was wide.

But it didn't extend to the voters. That $1.2 million he got in envelopes, skimmed from a huge county contract? That bloated payroll we all financed? That wasn't loyalty -- not at all.

Dimora arrested, indicted on 26 charges; judges McCafferty, Terry also charged

FBI agents led county commissioner Jimmy Dimora out of his Independence home in handcuffs and chains this morning. He's been indicted on 26 federal corruption charges: 24 counts of bribery and two of obstruction of justice. He'll be arraigned in federal court this afternoon.

Also arrested: Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judges Bridget McCafferty and Steven Terry. Terry faces a judicial corruption charge; McCafferty is accused of lying to a federal investigator.

I spent the 9 o'clock hour on WCPN's the Sound of Ideas with Mike McIntyre, talking about the charges. Here's the podcast of the show.

A few thoughts:

-The number of charges surprises me. It's more than the 21 that Frank Russo faces. For months now, I and lots of other commentators have thought the case against Russo was more clear-cut than the case against his friend. Dimora, who's loudly maintained his innocence, appears to believe that he never crossed the line and delivered anything of real value to his friends.

The feds disagree. They're hitting him with charges on what they see as 8 or 9 separate bribery schemes -- trying to establish a pattern of gifts for favors. This could make for a spectacular trial, probing the questions of when a gift becomes a bribe and when a favor for a friend becomes a corrupt favor?

-Dimora's facing charges on several alleged schemes we've learned about in the past 15 months -- the Vegas trip, the alleged free use of a condo at Stonebridge, home improvements on his house and pool patio. Also, two more alleged schemes are detailed in the charges today.

-The first, we first learned about last week: Dimora and Russo supposedly convinced Gerald McFaul to hire their friend Jerry Skruhovec (also indicted today). Skruhovec works for both the auditor's and sheriff's office -- sounds like nice work if you can get it!

-Also, Dimora and William Neiheiser, former Reliance Mechanical CEO, are charged in a new alleged bribery scheme "related to county business and city of Lakewood business." More on this as I dig into the indictment.

-Last week, when I read about judges McCafferty and Terry (PO4 and PO16) in the Russo charges, the case against Terry sounded stronger. He's alleged to have let Russo practically run his judge's chambers and call the shots in some court cases. McCafferty seems to have listened to Russo and Dimora's requests but not promised much. Sure enough, Terry is charged with judicial corruption today (specifically, one count of mail fraud). McCafferty is charged with making a false statement to law enforcement -- possibly a case where the cover-up is what gets you in trouble.

-I've already gotten a call from an attorney I know disagreeing with my comment on the radio that the filing of Russo and Dimora charges, two and eight days after the county council and executive primary, seems timed to minimize the effects on the fall elections. The prosecutors would never allow politics to enter their judgment, the attorney said. For now, I'll just make it clear I was speculating and have no inside info. Update, 2:20 p.m.: U.S. Attorney spokesman Mike Tobin says there's no rule keeping federal prosecutors from filing public corruption charges near an election. Prosecutors are "just working around the clock on it," he says.

No word on whether Dimora is going to plead not guilty and fight the charges. But I'd put money on it. Here, he flips the bird at a NewsNet 5 camera. Update, 2:20 p.m.: He pleads not guilty and fights.

Check out cleveland.com for a photo and video of the agents leading Dimora out of his house.

To read my Oct. 2009 profile of Jimmy Dimora, "Life of the Party," click here.

Who was right about Russo? Who enabled him?

One of the saddest things about the Frank Russo bribery scandal is that it didn’t have to happen. Twelve years ago, our political system came very close to taking Russo down -- but his offenses earned him a wrist-slap.

Everyone was forewarned about Russo’s true character. But in the past 12 years, he still got away with pages and pages of misdeeds, and an alleged $1.2 million in cash, because not enough people heeded the warnings. And some of our biggest political names – Jimmy Dimora and the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones -- covered for him.

Here’s the story. Russo was appointed county auditor in January 1997 by the county Democratic Party after 13 years as county recorder. Later that year, new recorder Pat O’Malley -- of all people -- blew the whistle on Russo, calling for a special audit of “bookkeeping irregularities” in the recorder’s office. State auditor Jim Petro’s staff spent a year investigating.

“Mr. O’Malley spoke of employees paying ‘kick backs’ to the former Recorder, Frank Russo, in order to receive pay raises,” Petro wrote in his report.

The audit, released in July 1998, reported that dozens of Russo employees were allowed and encouraged to do political campaigning on county time. Attendance sheets were marked “polls” and “election day.” Employees said they passed out “combs, nail files, literature, gum and signs” at the polls. They said payroll officers told them to sign in as having worked in the office that day, and they were later allowed to take unofficial days off in exchange.

One of those payroll officers was Cindy Calabrese -- now Cindy Bialowas, sister of Russo’s housemate, Michael Calabrese. Russo appointed her to co-supervise the troubled Board of Revisions last month. Back then, Bialowas, subpoenaed by Petro’s investigators, denied granting time off for campaigning.

Three workers also told investigators they felt pressured to donate to Russo’s political campaign. Two said they were pressed to sell or buy tickets to his fund-raisers. One said she was told that employees usually donated 2 percent of their salary to Russo’s campaign. Petro’s office forwarded the statements to the county prosecutor, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, for review.

The state audit came out while Russo was running for a full term as county auditor.

That September, Jim Trakas, then county Republican chairman, brought up Russo in his debate with Jimmy Dimora at the City Club.

“The Russo name used to stand for integrity and decency in government,” Trakas said. “Today, it stands for all that is wrong in county government.” Trakas called on Tubbs Jones to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Russo, noting that one of Tubbs Jones’ deputies had taken a leave of absence to manage Russo’s campaign.

Dimora, riffing on Bill Clinton’s legal troubles, joked it off.

“Please, no more special prosecutors,” the then-Democratic chairman sighed. He added, “If she feels there is enough evidence, whether it's civil or criminally, I'm sure [Tubbs Jones will] do the right thing.”

That year, Dimora loaned Russo’s campaign $15,000.

Mike Wise, Russo’s Republican opponent, used the audit against Russo in two hard-hitting campaign commercials. He called on Tubbs Jones (who died in 2008) to act on the allegations before the election. She didn’t. Voters re-elected Russo with 61 percent of the vote.

Russo could’ve faced a theft in office charge, a felony that would’ve barred him from holding office if convicted. Instead, three days before Christmas and 12 days before she left the prosecutor’s office for Congress, Tubbs Jones let Russo plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of dereliction of duty. He was sentenced to 120 days probation and agreed to pay a $750 fine and $26,000 in restitution.

At first, that earned Russo some scrutiny from his peers. The next year, county commissioner Tim McCormack, who’d preceded Russo as auditor, publicly questioned why Russo’s budget was growing. The commissioners held up approval of Russo’s leases for satellite offices until he got his budget under control. Russo tried to blame McCormack for leaving problems to clean up. But it was Russo who had increased the auditor’s staff from 237 employees to 280.

McCormack, a candidate for county executive, now says FBI agents interviewed him about jobs-for-cash allegations involving Russo a year after that, around 2000.

Russo got his revenge. He took the mike at a Democratic party meeting in late 2003 and tried to convince party members not to endorse McCormack’s re-election. Russo threw his support behind Tim Hagan, who also won strong support from business leaders and knocked off McCormack in the 2004 primary.

After that, did the commissioners ever seriously question Russo’s budget again? Not that I know of (and I’d be happy to be corrected on this). When the Plain Dealer ran its patronage exposé in 2008, Russo’s staff was still at 283.

Russo’s 14 bribery counts include a cash-for-jobs-and-raises conspiracy involving six employees -- and those are just the ones the FBI knows about. Anyone in power who says they had no idea Russo was corrupt has to contend with one tough question: After what the town learned about Russo in 1998, why weren’t you watching more closely?

Stark County 'political berserker' is breakout YouTube hit

Let's take a quick break from the Frank Russo scandal, shall we? While Cuyahoga County recoils in disgust from our pious ex-auditor's greed, the rest of the nation gazes at Canton in jaw-dropped horror.

Just two days ago, Phil Davison, Minerva village councilman and doomed candidate for Stark County treasurer, delivered a spittle-flecked rant at a Republican forum. Then the mostly-unemployed guy went home and figured that would be that. Now he's a star on most every TV news network. His bat-crazy six minutes of infamy are flashing frantically across YouTube. The Huffington Post has labeled him a "political berserker."

My favorite part is where he screams he has a master's degree in communications. Really?

For local context, I refer you to the Canton Repository, which reports that Davison frightened an old lady and caused Republicans to avert their eyes in revulsion.

This blogger helpfully explains that Stark County is getting a new treasurer because someone stole $2.5 million from the treasury.

So, Clevelanders, however angry you are about Russo's misdeeds, stay cool. You don't want to end up like this guy.