Ugly politics: Investigators paint landscape of corruption

Gambling trips to Las Vegas. Calls to judges for favors. A political party built on county workers putting aside their day jobs to handle party business.

The picture federal investigators appear to be trying to paint of county government in Northeast Ohio emerges from batches of federal subpoenas.

Agents want to know whether Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Auditor Frank Russo gained control of a cash machine that made them personally rich and helped boost the local Democratic Party.
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The unstated subtext of the subpoenas is clear: How did public officials earning less than a successful plumber afford the high life, complete with gambling trips, $100 dinners at expensive steakhouses, jewelry, elaborate swimming pools and $900,000 vacation homes?

Federal investigators are probing, documents show, whether Dimora, Russo and county employee J. Kevin Kelley received gifts and favors in exchange for public contracts going to contrac- tors.

They're also investigating whether Dimora and Russo used the local Democratic Party and the County Administration Building as their personal hiring hall to surround themselves with loyalists grateful to have a job with a solid salary, good benefits and a reliable retirement plan.

Lawyers for Dimora and Russo have adamantly denied their clients have done anything wrong, and say the men are loyal public servants.

The machine that the feds apparently believe is operating in Northeast Ohio works on a simple, self-perpetuating mechanism:

In an economy where no job or pension is safe, elected officials surround themselves with county workers so grateful for the salaries that they are willing to do political work on the public dime, ensuring the party's slate of candidates continues to get elected.

Such an apparatus would keep party leaders in positions to continue influencing which companies get contracts in a town where almost every big development is subsidized by a government entity. continue>>>

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