Posted on 07/08/2009 9:09:33 AM PDT by Jim from C-Town
CLEVELAND — Federal prosecutors this morning charged a Cleveland construction contractor with bribing Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora with $33,000 in cash, lawn work, Cavs and Indians tickets and hundreds of dollars in meals and drinks for county contracts.
The charges said an unnamed public official whose description matches Dimora helped Steve Pumper's company, D-A-S Construction, obtain work on county projects, including brownfield and public housing projects. The bribery charges were filed in U.S. District Court, and they allege that Pumper also used bribes to win contracts in Parma schools. They say he paid former board President J. Kevin Kelley $6,000 in cash to gain a $96,000 subcontract.
The charges also allege that Pumper begged Dimora to use his influence in his divorce, as well as a civil case that was pending before a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge whose description matches Judge Bridget McCafferty.
The charges included comments that Pumper called McCafferty and talked with her about speeding up the proceeding. He also thanked the judge, according to the charges.
McCafferty's chambers were searched by the FBI last year, weeks after agents raided the homes and offices of Pumper, Dimora, Kelley and County Auditor Frank Russo.
Dimora and McCafferty have not been charged with a crime and are not named in the charges, but public records show there is little doubt that they are the people named in the charges.
Attorneys for Dimora and McCafferty could not be reached.
Pumper resigned from D-A-S in April. Officials for D-A-S said the company has moved on and any improper conduct was contrary to the company's code of ethics.
DAS has done work for the VA here in Cleveland - though not for a while.
Those are for headlines of national import.
Perhaps. But if we put local news in the Breaking News tab, quite soon it would be overwhelmed.
didn’t Steve Pumper co-star with Jenna Jamison in several feature films?
No that was his brother Richard Pumper.
“It is national news because it shows the corruption of the Democrat machine politics from the local to the national level.”
bingo.
Worse yet, they’ve proven to be les incompetents as well as criminals. It’s one thing if they’re crooks but run things well, but still another if they run the place into the ground.
CLeveland -— CHicago It’s all the same.
Pumper? I never touched her!
*rimshot*
}:-)4
LMAO!
Is this tied in with that Federal investigation into connected corruption between the solicitation of contracts in cities including Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, and Houston?
That thing has gone on for years. And it simmers under the radar as a “local” story when it is a NATIONAL story.
See my post below, I suspect that this is part of a long running ongoing prosecution of corruption that extends into a number of states (same players involved).
One of the guys from Houston was Mayor Lee P. Brown’s aide.
tip meets iceberg....
Yeah, might as well put that phrase into the MS Word autotext function for the next 4 or so years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
