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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor
CLEVELAND, Ohio -Proceeding pro se on appeal and acting as his his own attorney, former Cuyahoga County County commissioner Jimmy Dimora (pictured along and with Frank Russo), also the former chair of the county Democratic party, has won early release from federal prison to serve out the remaining seven years of his 23-year prison sentence on house arrest at his home in Independence, Ohio.
He sufferes from diabetes and heart problems, caught the coromavirus twice as a federal prison inmate and was released from the penitentiary last week for such reasons, as well as- additional reasons. His sidekick, former county auditor Frank Russo, was sadly not around to welcome him home.
A former Mayfield Hts councilman, county recorder during the early 80s, and county auditor from 1997 until he took a plea deal in in 2009 on public corruption charges relative to a longstanding county public corruption scandal that took off in 3008 and has seen more than 75 Democratic party affiliates charged and convicted., mainly businessmen but also including two former common pleas judges who served prison time, Russo was handed a 22-year federal prison sentence that was later reduced by seven years. He died in 2022 after being released from prison partly due to the stress of the prosecution and prison and its impact on his family, sources said . Dimora’s release came just days before the congressional CARES Act is set to expire.
The act referenced for Dimoraora's appeal forearly release from prison was passed by Congress in 2020 during the height of the pandemic as an emergency economic relief package but it contained a host of other provisions. Since the public health emergency officially ended on May 11, the CARES Act stays active for an additional 30 days, meaning it expired on June 10.
County Democrats say for the most part that the sentences against Russo, Dimora and nearly the whole group of cases that the Akron judge who sentenced them presided over were excessive, politically motivated and implemented allegedly to appease Republicans and their alleged affiliates, , including officials of the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper, Ohio's largest newspaper that aws unnerved by the publiu corruption and published a plethora of one-sided articles and editorials condemning it and calling for an immeeiate change in county governance. That voter adopted change in county governance, which took effect in 2011 and was opposed by Black leaders and the Cleveland Chapter NAACP under then president GEorge FORbes, replaced three county commissioners and the county elected offices, all but the still-elected common pleas judges and county prosecutor, with an elected county executive and 11-member county council. they said the new system creates dictatorship like the office of the county executive for example, and the county sheriff. Russo’s sentence had been reduced by nearly seven years because he cooperated with federal officials and allegedly snitched, sources say, on other Democrats. He also was ordered to pay nearly $7 million in restitution. Prosecutors said at Dimora's trial that he and Dimora ran a political machine cultivated through bribes, gifts and other criminal llegalities.
LIke Russo,DImora wasw a personality too. He cavalierly taunted the IRS and fBI relative to its extensive public corruption probe that climaxed in 2009 saying he was a target because of his obesity.Dimora said during his criminal ordeal that he had allegedly bribed at least 10 area Democratic judges to fix cases but his aggressiveness was met with claims of his own impropriety and public corruption activity . Cooperating with the federal government, Russo testified against his former friend at his corruption trial. Then 56, an Akron federal jury found Dimora guilty on 36 counts, including racketeering, bribery, conspiracy under the Hobbs Act and and conspiracy and tax charges.
With the Plain Dealer at the helm and pushing for alternatives, the public corruption fallout led to an unprecedented change in county governance That voter adopted change in county governance, which took effect in 2011, replaced three county commissioners and the county elected offices, all but the still-elected common please judges and county prosecutor, with an elected county executive and 11-member county council.
Those appointed county offices that the county executive now makes include the sheriff, county auditor, clerk of courts, fiscal officer, and county treasurer
Black leaders and the Cleveland NAACP, led by former county commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, then Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge and then Cleveland NAACP president George Forbes, a former Cleveland City Council president, opposed the change in county governance before it was approved by voters in 2009 by a two-to-one margin. At the time they worried that the current county governance disenfranchises voters and Black people, and puts too much power in the hands of one official, such as a county executive, now Chris Ronanyne, a Democratic insider and the campaign manager for former Cleveland mayor Jane Campbell's successful campaign for mayor in in 2021.
Roynayne's predecessor,former county executive ARmond budish, did not seek reelection to another four-year term last yea after his office was raided twice by the FBI following questionable deaths of some 10 or more inmates in the troubled county jail since 2018. Budish has also faced criminal investigations of his inner staff and convictions of key members of his administration. including the former jail warden, jail director, human resources director, and seceral jail corrections officers.
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