Attorneys for Jimmy Dimora, a former county commissioner and former chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party argue before appeals court, say 28-year sentence was too harsh, Judge Lioi is biased, community activists agree, say the judge mistreated former judge Steven Terry, who is Black and whom she also sentenced

Former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora,
 also the former chair of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party

By  Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog. Tel: 216-659-0473. (Kathy Wray Coleman is a 20-year investigative and political journalist and legal reporter who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's Black press)

www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

CINCINNATI, Ohio-Former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, also a former chair of the powerful Cuyahoga County Democratic Party,  is asking a federal appeals court to reverse his convictions on 32 corruption-related charges, including racketeering, and his attorneys want a new trial.

Oral arguments were held yesterday morning before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, which will issue its ruling in upcoming months.  Dimora did not attend the hearing.

Federal District Court Judge
Sara Lioi

His lawyers say that Federal District Court Judge Sara Lioi out of Akron is biased and that she erred to the extent that a new trial is warranted. 

Appeals are typically about whether a trial court judge erred or did wrong in civil, criminal and other court cases, and whether that wrongdoing merits a reversal of the trial court proceedings at issue, sometimes via a new trial, and other times overturning the convictions outright, among other remedies the appeals court panel might order.

Dimora, 59, was sentenced to 28 years in prison. He is now serving his sentence at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

In a brief filed by attorney Christian J. Grostic on behalf of Dimora, the former county commissioner's attorneys told the appeals court that "Dimora was deprived of a fair trial" and that the government convinced Lioi to "exclude relevant, admissible and powerful exculpatory evidence of Dimora's intent."

In the brief, Dimora argues in part that he "did not solicit or accept things of value knowing they were given in exchange for official acts." And that he reported the gifts on ethics reports.

A three-judge panel heard the oral arguments by both sides, federal prosecutors telling the three judges that a mountain of evidence supports Dimora's bribery and other convictions. 

But whether arguments made to the appellate panel and in briefs filed by Dimora's legal team, including the judge's  refusal to admit evidence at trial that Dimora reported the gifts on ethics reports, gifts the prosecution says were bribes, are enough for a new trial, remains to be seen.

The former county commissioner's convictions came as part of an ongoing county corruption probe that has netted over 60 convictions or guilty pleas, including two former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judges and former county auditor Frank Russo, who is serving a 22-year sentence. 

Most of the culprits are businessmen associated with the county Democratic Party. 

Activists have called Lioi prejudiced, saying Dimora's sentence was harsh compared to others sentenced by the same Republican judge, most to prison between two and eight years. They say that Lioi should not have presided over practically all of the cases associated with the corruption probe in place of random draw federal judges and that Black men were allegedly harassed by the judge too.

"Notwithstanding the crimes that Jimmy Dimora was convicted of, I think the punishment was too severe," Community Activist Larry Bresler told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper, after Dimora's sentencing in July 2012.

A non-practicing lawyer, Bresler leads the Northeast Ohio Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Organize Ohio, and said also that "people that commit murder rarely are sentenced to 28 years."

Community Activist Ada Averhart asked why "the Republicans have not been prosecuted."

Former Cuyahoga County
Court of Common Pleas
Judge Bridget McCafferty

Dimora faced more than 30 years in prison for his non-violent white collar crimes. He appeared for sentencing handcuffed and in an orange jail jumpsuit. He did not take the stand at his eight week trial before Lioi, who came under fire  also from community activists for handing former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Steven Terry, who is Black, a maximum six year sentence and giving Bridget McCafferty, a White former common pleas judge who faced 50 years in prison, only 14 months.

Former Cuyahoga County Court of
Common Pleas Judge Steven Terry

Terry was convicted of mail fraud and fixing a single foreclosure case for the homeowner, and McCafferty was convicted by a separate Akron jury of 10 counts of lying to the FBI on whether she was asked to fix cases for Dimora and other Democratic Party affiliates, among other lies.

While Mccafferty has served her jail time, Terry remains in federal prison. 

Dimora's lead attorney, William Whitaker, told reporters after the sentencing that Lioi is prejudiced against his client, if not hostile, and called her sentence a "death sentence."

But Lioi said the punishment fits the crime, even though federal prosecutors recommended only a 22 year prison sentence.

The judge said at Dimora's sentencing that the world of Cuyhoga County corruption was enhanced by Dimora, and Russo, both of whom were described by the judge on record as having a symbiotic relationship, a term often used in the science arena to give to animals that benefit from each other's behaviors, good or bad.

The saga unraveled in 2008 when over 250 FBI and IRS agents raided Dimora and Russo's public offices and homes, among some others ultimately charged also with corruption. And instead of prosecuting the corruption probe cases at the federal district court of the northern district of Ohio in Cleveland, federal prosecutors successfully had the cases, practically all of them, heard at the district court in Akron, a city some 30 miles south of Cleveland.

Among a plethora of other criminal charges, the former county commissioner was convicted of using his office as commissioner to steer county contracts to friends and political associates, having an unlawful interest in a public contract, including employee labor at his lavish swimming pool at his home in Independence, Oh., and racketeering at its finest.

The Democrats say the corruption probe was pushed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper, and is politically motivated and driven by Republicans, assertions the Republicans deny. 

Voters changed the county governance structure in 2010 and got rid of the three-member Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners and all elected county positions but the judges and county prosecutor, including the elected sheriff, coroner, treasurer, clerk of courts, recorder and auditor. Before that those elected offices were all held by Democrats.

Today the county is run by an elected county executive, Ed FitzGerald, who appoints the sheriff, clerk of courts, medical examiner and the other once elected offices at issue, and in cooperation with an eleceted 11-member Cuyahoga County Council, which is majority Democratic but does have some Republican members. 

FitzGerald was elected county executive in 2011 and opted not to seek reelection this year to instead run for governor, likely on the Democratic ticket. www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)