Cuyahoga County probe: Frank Russo charged, resigns; others likely next

[Marthe48]

Source: WKYC


CLEVELAND -- Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo resigned Thursday morning. But federal officials are far from done yet, as more than 57 new "employees, executives and businesses" are referred to by code name in Russo's 58-page indictment. Russo himself is being charged with 21 counts in the Cuyahoga County corruption probe.

Read more: http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=147624&catid=5

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Federal probe, heard about this on Ohio state news channel today.

[Kolesar]

1. The best story the Plain Dealer has had to sell newspapers this year

That means we won't be seeing Frank Russo's mug on the gas pumps much longer.

[Stevepol]

2. Isn't this where a lot of the voting irregularities happened in 04?

You don't think he had a hand in any of these? Nah, people don't rig voting machines, even if they know they can't get caught, even if they're so corrupt they'd do anything for money and power.

I'm sure nobody will even consider the possiblity it's so remote from the real world.

Maybe the link that follows says something about it, but it would probably be better not to read anything about it, just be grateful for our every watchful investigators assuring that our democracy is never tainted by even the hint of a rigged election.

http://www.waketheflockup.com/WRHARTICLES/2004votefraud_ohio.html

[liberal N proud]

3. No

That was around Columbus

[Wilms]

4. Yes.

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0320-23.htm

In fact the only people jailed for that fiasco came from the Columbus County BoE.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2379

[Doremus]

6. Election board workers in Cuyahoga County were indeed convicted and jailed.

For cheating on the '04 recount.

[Doremus]

5. Russo is a Dem.

Voting 'irregularities' did occur but the head of Ohio RNC was head of the county election board then.

[Ellipsis]

7. "There's a red moon rising On the Cuyahoga River"... K&R

I look forward to seeing how this unravels.

The 58-page charging document filled with an alphabet soup of unnamed collaborators suggests Russo coordinated a web of corruption that included low-level bureaucrats and the county sheriff, lawyers and sitting judges, construction contractors and business consultants -- one of them his own son.

The bribes and deception extended from a holy shrine in Euclid to the gambling tables of Las Vegas, according to the charges. And the payoff to Russo was substantial. In one count, Russo admitted taking a series of bribes totaling more than $1 million over 10 years.

...more.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/09/federal_prosecutors_charge_aud.html


Bonus Material:

How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush
November 22, 2004


<Big Snip>

In Cuyahoga County, according to the Secretary of State’s website there are 24,788 provisional ballots,cast in 2004 most of them from the city of Cleveland, not its surrounding suburbs. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell served as Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Ohio reelection committee.

There also seems to be an abnormally high vote count for third party candidates who received less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote total combined. For example, in precinct 4-F, the right-wing Constitutional Law candidate Peroutka received 215 votes to Bush’s 21 and Kerry’s 290. In this precinct, Kerry received 55% of the vote where Gore received 91% of the vote in the year 2000. These numbers suggest that Kerry’s votes were inadvertently or intentionally shifted to Peroutka.


more...


http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/995

'Cause the Cuyahoga River goes smokin' through my dreams

Clipped from Randy Newan's "Burn On"

[Ellipsis]

8. Who is Frank Russo?

His late father, Tony, was a tough-talking Ohio state representative. Three of Tony's four sons would go into politics -- Basil a shrewd and influential Cleveland councilman, a candidate for mayor and later a judge; Anthony, who leaves the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court for a spot on the Probate Court bench at the end of the year; and Frank, now the county auditor.

Their original turf -- long since expanded -- was the East Side Italian neighborhoods in Murray Hill and Mayfield Heights. Frank was elected a Mayfield Heights councilman at 21, then the youngest municipal legislator in the region.

"Since I was 10 years old, everyone said I would be a great politician," said Russo. His recipe for success: "The mixture was my vibrant personality. I was extremely outgoing. Basil is the brains. I'm the personality."

more...

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2008/06/who_is_frank_russo.html








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