Pictured are Cuyahoga County Human Resources Director Doug Dykes (wearing brown suit), County Executive Armond Budish (wearing maroon tie), Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst( who is not Dyke's judge but the judge of Eric Ivey, the former county jail warden), and former Cuyahoga County Jail warden Eric Ivey (wearing blue tie)
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio - A key member of the cabinet of embattled Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish has backed out of a proposed plea deal regarding felony theft in office and an array of other criminal charges in connection with a bonus, moving expenses and other amenities he is accused of independently giving to the county's then deputy chief information officer, who did not move to the county, prosecutors say.
Human resources chief Doug Dykes, who is Black and a resident of Cleveland Hts, a middle class Cleveland suburb, was set to plead no contest Friday before visiting judge Patricia Cosgrove, but he and his attorney, Anthony Jordan, also Black and a former Cleveland chief prosecutor, have since decided otherwise, setting the stage for a tell-all public corruption trial that could bring down Budish and his entire Democratic political regime, sources said Monday.
Dykes has remained in his cabinet-level position at the insistence of Budish and earns $176,000 annually, Budish under fire from community activists like Brenda Bickerstaff, who says that like Blacks who are getting indicted, Budish should be indicted by a county grand jury too, and that he is protected because he is not Black.
A former Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Budish is Jewish, and is in trouble too, data show.
The FBI has raided the downtown Cleveland headquarters of the powerful county executive twice this year as Budish remains a political liability to the county Democratic party.
Cuyahoga County is the second largest of 88 counties statewide.
It is a Democratic stronghold.
Jordan purportedly told cleveland.com that his client changed his mind on the plea deal because it would shut him out of government employment.
According to Jordan, the two sides are still negotiating a potential plea deal with a status conference set for Dec. 9.
The criminal case docket reveals that Judge Cosgrove has set Dyke's trial for March.
If convicted of public corruption- related charges, Dykes would become the first member of the cabinet of Budish convicted of public corruption-related charges since the era of former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, the former chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, Dimora currently serving a 28-year federal prison sentence for racketeering and other public corruption-related crimes in office.
More than 75 others associated with that FBI and public corruption probe that took off in 2008, mainly Democratic businessmen, have either been found guilty or taken plea deals, including former auditor Frank Russo, who is currently in prison, and two former common pleas judges who were convicted and served prison time, one for lying to the FBI, and the other mortgage fraud related issues while on the bench.
Dykes' indictment earlier this year, along with former jail director Mills and former IT administrator Emily McNeely, came as part of an investigation into the county’s IT department.
Mills and McNeely await trial.
He says that former county law director Robert Triozzi, also a former Cleveland law director and former municipal court judge, approved the bonus, moving expenses and other amenities he gave to then deputy chief information officer James Hay in 2017 that is the impetus of his criminal charges, Triozzi denying such claim and later quitting as county law director.
Dykes' indictment and upcoming trial also come following nine recent deaths in the county jail, and indictments of several jail guards, the former jail director, and former jail warden Eric Ivey, who took a misdemeanor plea deal before Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst and got probation to snitch on others, community activists, led by longtime activist Art McKoy, picketing both Ivey and Fuerst before the sentencing hearing in October and demanding the judge's ouster from the bench for a litany of documented reasons. (Editor's note: Fuerst is also accused of denying maliciously prosecuted Black defendants speedy trial rights, illegally jailing Blacks for political and other reasons, denying indigent Blacks counsel, covering up falsification and criminal docket tampering, issuing warrants for trials not documented or journalized in writing as required, and refusing to docket when Blacks falsely accused of assault on crooked White cops appear for trial and the lying White cops do not. Community activists want voters to vote Fuerst out when she seeks reelection in 2020)
U.S. Marshals, in November 2018, issued a report deeming conditions in the county jail and the mistreatment of inmates unconstitutional and inhumane.
Clifford Pinkney, the county's first Black sheriff, and of whom reported to Budish, resigned in August, amid the controversy.
Cuyahoga County voters, via the November election, overwhelmingly approved Issue 6, a charter amendment put on the ballot by county council that requires more training and experience to be sheriff and gives the appointed sheriff more authority and autonomy from Budish, the measure passing with 75 percent voter approval.
The charter amendment, a compromise to appease county council members who want to return to an elected sheriff, passes as the county jail, which merged with the city jail Cleveland in 2017, is in the national spotlight
Appointed rather than elected due to a voter-adopted change in county governance implemented in 2011 that replaced three county commissioners and the county elected offices, with a county executive and 11-member county council, all but the still elected judges and county prosecutor, the sheriff served at the pleasure of the county executive until the new charter amendment was approved by voters this month.
Issue 6 requires that the sheriff is appointed per the recommendation of the county executive subject to confirmation by the county council, which would also have authority to remove the sheriff for cause by a vote of eight of the 11 county council members, a super majority.
The charter amendment essentially strips Budish and any other county executive of authority to demand the firing of the sheriff independent of county council's assessment and approval, and limits his authority in hiring a sheriff.
Also now appointed by the county executive rather than elected relative to the change in governance that took effect in 2011 are the county clerk of courts, treasurer, auditor and fiscal officer, all of the positions elected until the change took effect, a governance change that followed the ongoing county public corruption probe led by the FBI and IRS that netted prison time for a former county commissioner and auditor, and two former common pleas judges, among others.
Before the governance structure that ditched the three commissioners was implemented in 2011, a governance structure similar to neighboring Summit County, the Democrats held all of the non-judicial county offices in Cuyahoga County
Now about a fourth of the 11 county council members, a substitute for the commissioners, are Republican.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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