The Professor, still missing, rises again to bait Dimora

Longtime readers know my favorite local political blogger was the anonymous Professor, author of Political Science 216, who gleefully mocked and caricatured local elected officials from 2007 to 2009. He disappeared last summer, soon after Seven Hills Mayor Dave Bentkowski's lawyer declared he had "a plan" to unmask him for a libel suit. The Professor pulled the plug on his blog and deleted his alter ago, Peter Boyd, from Facebook.

But he left behind a Facebook group. "Recall Dimora," he called it originally. But when he learned that Dimora can't be recalled, he renamed it, "Resign, Dimora, You No Good, Corrupt Pig!"

Well, a year later, Jimmy Dimora has finally learned about the group. NewsChannel 5's Duane Pohlman and WKYC TV 3's Tom Beres both asked him about it in interviews on Thursday. "It's appalling, it's disgusting, uncalled for, unwarranted," Dimora told Pohlman. "They've already found me guilty."

Dimora's angry that the Cleveland FBI chief's 19-year-old son was a member (he quickly deleted himself this week) and that Bob Bennett and Rob Frost, the Ohio and Cuyahoga County Republican chairmen, are still on it. Frost tells the Plain Dealer's Tipoff he won't quit the page.

Somewhere on Cleveland's West Side, an attorney and anonymous former blogger -- that's all I know about the Professor's true identity -- is secretly laughing. I'd love to hear what he thinks about this!

For the record, Dimora also said the allegation that he saw a prostitute in Las Vegas is "totally ridiculous." Yes, he saw a woman in his hotel room, he told Pohlman, but she did "exactly what I asked for! The massage! And that’s on phone tape! I didn’t ask for a hooker on the phone. I didn’t ask for a prostitute on the phone." There was "no sex," he added. Prosecutors charged contractor Ferris Kleem with paying the woman $1,000 as part of a conspiracy to bribe Dimora. "I know I paid her!" Dimora said. "It wasn’t nowhere near no thousand dollars!"

Here's Pohlman's story below. Or, to see Beres's piece, click here.

Where is the Professor?

The Professor, my favorite local political blogger, has gone missing. His blog, Political Science 216, has been removed from Blogger.

The anonymous, hilarious commentator has gone on sabbatical before, taking a break for a few months after the 2008 elections. In his last post, earlier this month, he said he'd be traveling Europe with his wife for two months but would return in August. Now I'm not so sure. An e-mail to the anonymous hotmail account once listed on his site just bounced back.

One possible reason The Professor has disappeared without a trace: Dave Bentkowski, the mayor of Seven Hills, sued him for libel last year. The Plain Dealer reported last Sunday (2nd item) that Bentkowski couldn't figure out who The Professor is, even after subpoenaing Google. But a judge has given the mayor permission to refile his suit if he ever succeeds in discovering his secret identity. "I have a plan for him," Bentkowski's lawyer, Brent English, hinted ominously.

Last fall (for non-litigious reasons), I also tried figuring out who The Professor is. I didn't get very far. Here's my profile of the cyber-masked man.