Feds say Dimora took 100 bribes, ask for 22+ year sentence

One week to go before Jimmy Dimora is sentenced to federal prison for his crimes, and the feds have filed their long-awaited sentencing memo.  What more could they possibly tell us about the Big D and his comical depravity?

Except for a footnote about case-fixing, not much.  Instead, the prosecutors unleash their rage at Dimora on the public's behalf.  They say he took more than 100 bribes from 11 people, worth more than $250,000.  They credit him with destroying the government he led by inspiring voters to throw it out in disgust.  They say he undermined our confidence in government, disrespected his family, mocked charity, and committed two of the seven deadly sins.  They really pile it on.

Their goal? "This landmark corruption case compels a landmark corruption sentence," they say.  They want Dimora, age 57, to go to prison for more than 22 years.

Some of the best quotes:

Dimora corrupted nearly every aspect of his job and of County Government. He accepted bribes in return for County jobs, loans, grants, contracts, fixing court cases and gaining an advantage with County agencies.

The effects of Dimora’s conduct bloating the public payrolls, giving preferential treatment to certain contractors and loan applicants, and tipping the scales of justice to benefit some litigants over others, have been, and will be, felt for years.

Dimora built a backyard resort on the backs of the County taxpayers. He funded his 7 gambling trips, poker parties, secret trysts, and expensive meals, from the County till. This behavior is particularly outrageous because it occurred during a time that demanded fiscal constraint, when the County was cutting services and asking financially strapped taxpayers to pass additional tax levies.

Nothing in Dimora’s upbringing excuses, justifies or otherwise mitigates against strong punishment. The Presentence Investigation Report detailed that Dimora enjoyed an enviable childhood. One can only conclude that he was simply motivated to commit these crimes by greed and the lust for power.

Credit for the prose appears to belong to Antoinette Bacon, the assistant U.S. attorney who handled much of the government's case at trial.

Bacon is also good at making lists and charts.  Here is her highly entertaining list of the 18 bribes Ferris Kleem gave Dimora:

• Plasma TV $ 2,500.00
• Television discount $ 200.00
• Ring $ 200.00
• Refrigerator $ 1,149.90
• Cash to Dimora for refrigerator $ 1,150.00
• Cash for Dimora Rolex $ 2,000.00
• Suite at Mirage Hotel for Dimora $ 1,154.86
• Cash for Las Vegas for Dimora $ 6,000.00
• Cash to Frank Russo for Las Vegas $ 6,000.00
• Food, beverages and cabana rentals in Las Vegas $ 2,260.87
• Casino gaming chips for Dimora $ 3,425.00
• Casino gaming chips for Kelley $ 1,000.00
• Dinner at Prime $ 2,219.90
• Suzzanne Michaels $ 1,000.00
• Trout Club Dinner $ 1,496.54
• Wine for Trout Club dinners $ 1,000.00
• Mallorca Dinner $ 4,000.00
• Teamz Lunch $ 227.72
• Total Bribes $ 36,984.79

The feds also note that Dimora kept up his limo-riding, stripper-loving, backyard-styling ways all throughout 2005, when Nate Gray, Cuyahoga County's previous king of political corruption, was facing trial. 

• $13,098.68 in home improvements from DAS
• $1,362 in limousine services from Payne and his law firm
• $300 in female entertainment from Payne
• $600 in home improvements from Reliance Mechanical
• $705 in home improvements from Local 55 and Rybak and
• $1,079.14 tiki bar from FNA and Randazzo.

Gray's 15 years in the clink weren't enough to deter Dimora, they note. So they figure 22 or more should scare the next political crook.

Dimora gets a chance to respond, and his lawyers do have a few points they can make. Dimora didn't have his hand in the till like the feds say, they'll argue.  No one showed him stealing county money for himself, not directly; he just nudged contracts and loans in his friends' directions.  At one point, the feds cite a cement contract that went to Kleem's Phoenix Cement, but everyone agrees Phoenix was the low bidder.  Dimora's lawyers will likely argue, again, that everything he voted on was vetted by county staff and the other commissioners.

It actually is hard to find any clear mistake the county made because Dimora got bribed to make it happen -- though the $5 million purchase of the decrepit parking garage on Prospect comes close. 

Still, this is not a case where the defendant will get much sympathy, from the judge or anyone.  The prosecutors know it.  Here's how they respond to his plea to get let out of the joint to see a doctor:

Defendant has provided no evidence that his medical conditions cannot be diagnosed and treated by the Bureau of Prisons. Moreover, many of his health problems appear to be weight-related and should ease as Dimora loses weight on a prison diet.

Last thread from Nate Gray case tied up

Ah, nostalgia.  Romantics pine for lost love, sports fans recall long-ago championships, and journalists reminisce about scandal.

So I bet I'm not the only journalist in town surprised by woozy vertigo on Tuesday as old times rushed back onto the Plain Dealer's front page.

"Allega pays $500,000 to resolve complaint," the headline read.  The last legal vestige of the Nate Gray scandal is, at last, finished.

Eleven years ago, Anthony Allega Cement Contractors laid a new runway at Hopkins Airport, the biggest single construction job Cleveland City Hall ever awarded. Now, Allega is paying the Justice Department a cool half-million dollars to resolve its complaint that Allega used minority subcontractors as false fronts on the job. 

Every time I fly out of Hopkins on that western runway, I think of Nate Gray. He doesn't appear in the PD article, but he was suspected to be all over that contract.  The FBI investigated the runway job, trying to prove that Gray, former Mayor Mike White's best friend, corrupted the city's minority subcontractors program during White's administration.  The FBI also thought Gray was the mayor's bag man, but couldn't prove it. The feds never filed charges against White, and the 45 corruption charges it leveled against Gray didn't include the runway scandal and never mentioned the mayor.

I still remember the shock I felt when, reporting on the Gray case in 2005, I laid three public records side by side. One was a FBI subpoena served on East Cleveland City Hall. The second was a letter from an FBI agent to a Cleveland City Hall official, asking for the names of the minority subcontractors on Allega's runway contract. The third was a report that listed those subcontractors: RMC, Chem-Ty Environmental, and Bradley Construction. They also appeared, in sequence, on the East Cleveland subpoena. 

That's when I knew for sure that the Nate Gray case was much bigger than his bribes to East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor or his dalliances in Houston and New Orleans.  The FBI was aiming right at the White Administration's biggest projects, including its $1.4 billion airport expansion.

My interview with John Allega still ranks as one of the most tense conversations I've ever had. I remember walking into his office and making small talk about I-480's towering Valley View bridge nearby, and he replied that people often committed suicide by jumping off it.

Allega, who knew the FBI had tapped his fax machine, confirmed that Gray was in the business of connecting contractors with minority subcontractors for city work.

"It was the talk of the town," Allega told me. "People would ask, 'Did Nate Gray ever come to see you?' "

Allega said he'd taken on Chem-Ty and RMC on Gray's advice. (RMC was owned by Gray and White's buddy Ricardo Teamor.) As Allega told the story, he later learned that both companies, and Bradley Construction, were paying Gray a percentage of their contract and calling it a consulting fee.
 
Gray also made an offer to Allega. "He'd say, 'I'm friends with the mayor. Maybe I can help you out with some of your problems.' I had no problems. I told him, 'I don't need no help.'"

Allega told me Chem-Ty proved incapable of finishing its work.  City and federal investigators later decided that wasn't the half of it.  They declared that Allega's minority subcontractors had performed little work on the runway, and that Chem-Ty was merely a "pass-through," a front. Allega was banned from getting Cleveland contracts for four years.

Since then, over drinks, lunch and coffee, I've heard fellow reporters spill their impressions of Gray and White's relationship, wonder if the FBI still had a final shoe to drop (despite the five-year statute of limitations on most federal crimes), theorize about the leaked affidavits that proved the FBI  targeted White, and basically reminisce about the good old days of mortal combat with an often-vicious mayor.  The standard speculation (and here I should repeat that there is no proof) centers on whether Gray could've confirmed the FBI's suspicions about White but, out of a loyalty no one can comprehend, took his secret with him to federal prison.

Today, Nate Gray is in the Terre Haute Federal Correctional Institution in Indiana, almost halfway through his 15 years. White is retired in Newcomerstown, kissing alpacas. And Allega has resolved its dispute with the feds without admitting any wrongdoing.  That is the real, quiet end to the story.
 
To follow me back to the bad old days, check out my stories "Inside the Nate Gray Case" and "Scenes and Secrets: Nate Gray on Trial."

Sheriff = Santa?

Jimmy Malone, the morning radio host, has a great talent for political satire. I've appreciated it since 2005, when I asked him who Cleveland's perfect mayor would be, and he replied, "Nate Gray. Because that would cut out the middleman." (Gray, ex-mayor Mike White's ex-best friend, was about to go on trial on 45 charges of political corruption.)

You've got to read Malone's op-ed in today's Plain Dealer, a hilarious rewrite of the famous newspaper article, "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus." Malone assures Virginia that yes, there is a Cuyahoga County sheriff, even if he never comes to work.

If you don't remember how the original goes, read it first, then read Malone's update. He doesn't change much of the text -- which makes it even funnier.

If you don't get all the Sheriff McFaul jokes, click here.

Bonus McFauliana: The PD's best photo gallery ever -- McFaul's Jan. 5 reaction to reporter Mark Puente's first exposés of his office, including McFaul poking Puente with his cane!

PD to FBI: Quit stalling and bring him in!

The Plain Dealer is tired of waiting to see if the feds indict Jimmy Dimora. Its front-page article today, "204 days & counting: Is probe lagging?" asks why no charges have been filed yet.

It's a weak story. Its impatience reminds me a little of Louis Seltzer's infamous Cleveland Press headline about the Sam Sheppard case: "Quit Stalling And Bring Him In!"

OK, the PD, unlike Seltzer, gets someone from an activist group to say, "Charge him or move on." Still, the paper knows the feds aren't done investigating -- the Parma schools were hit with a subpoena just two weeks ago -- yet it suggests the feds could just charge Dimora with something (anything!) now and figure out the rest later: "If prosecutors do charge Dimora, they could file one or two charges soon and then follow up with additional charges, which is common."

The paper asks why the feds can't move as fast as they did in their rush to charge now-impeached Illinois governor and hair freak Rod Blagojevich. Yet the story quotes U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's explanation that he charged Blagojevich to stop him "in the middle of ... a political corruption crime spree" -- that is, to keep him from selling off a U.S. Senate seat. There's just no evidence that Dimora and Co. are about to pull off any swindle that big.

Yes, I know county officials and voters are stuck in a very awkward position. Even though the FBI is investigating Dimora, he's still making decisions on big issues such as the Medical Mart. Because Dimora hasn't been charged with a crime, only the Republican Party and The Professor have called for him to go.

But consider how long Cleveland's last big corruption case took to unfold. In December 2002, the FBI caught East Cleveland Mayor Emmanuel Onunwor on tape asking political fixer Nate Gray, "Did Santa Claus bring anything?" Agents confronted Onunwor outside Gray's Shaker Square office and found bribe money on him in March 2003. That was the start of the "overt phase" of the Nate Gray investigation (as the feds call it).

But the FBI didn't rush its case in order to get Onunwor out of office. They indicted him in April 2004, a year later. He remained mayor until his conviction that August. Gray was found guilty in August 2005 -- or 2 1/2 years after the investigation became overt.

The county probe is more complicated. It includes work done on Dimora and Frank Russo's houses, Russo's housemate, his son, his private real estate company, tax assessments, the Ameritrust Tower, the juvenile justice center, two judges, several contractors, worker's comp deals across the suburbs, the county's hospital and public housing, alleged ex-mobsters, casino chips, Dimora's refrigerator, a photograph of a now-deceased county employee/former strip-club manager/former radio DJ, and a note about a mysterious "$20,000 payment." Dimora's attorney estimates the feds are poring over 500,000 documents. Give them time!