Speaking of trials, the current Cleveland trial of Jimmy Dimora is begging for a return of Court TV. Not sure if any other former Northeastern Ohio folks are following, but it's a real hoot with stuff that entertainment writers would not make up....
Jimmy Dimora federal racketeering trial: former Cuyahoga commissioner had insatiable sexual desires
Updated: Tuesday, January 24, 2012, 10:17 PM
Peter Krouse, The Plain Dealer
AKRON, Ohio -- Jurors and the rest of Northeast Ohio need wonder no longer what federal prosecutors believe motivated Jimmy Dimora -- an insatiable appetite for sex.
For the first time Tuesday, prosecutors in Dimora's racketeering trial offered accounts of how people trying to curry favor went to great lengths and expense to arrange extra-marital trysts for the then-Cuyahoga County commissioner.
They connected with female escort services. They dispatched limos to pick up women from as far away as Toledo. They searched for discreet spots for encounters. They dropped off condominium keys.
And they talked about the women in the bluntest of terms.
"Get the one with the thing in her tongue," Dimora could be heard saying in one secretly recorded phone conversation.
Jurors previously had heard testimony suggesting that Dimora sold his influence to contractors and others for much more mundane loot a refrigerator, a wide-screen television, a gambling junket to Las Vegas, a poolside Tiki bar for his Independence home.
Most of the salacious new testimony came Tuesday morning, with Dimora's wife, Lori, absent from the courtroom and Michael Massie, the FBI's lead investigator in a five-year investigation of corruption in county government, on the stand.
Former Cuyahoga County Commissioner JImmy Dimora leaves the Federal Courthouse in Akron at the end of another day in his corruption trial Tues., Jan 24, 2012. At far right is his co-defendant Michael Gabor. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)
The men wanted Dimora to increase their boss's pay so that their own salaries, which were higher, wouldn't seem so out of line, Massie testified.
Prosecutors played intercepted phone conversations in which Kelley, Payne and Dimora planned for Dimora to have a Saturday night adventure.
At one point, Kelley asked Dimora if a penthouse at the Embassy Suites hotel at Cleveland's Reserve Square would work. But the commissioner nixed the idea, fearing he might be spotted by someone from television station WOIO Channel 19, which had offices nearby.
The men also considered a condominium at the Stonebridge complex on the West Bank of the Flats.
Kelley repeatedly phoned Dimora about Payne's efforts to get a key, almost to the annoyance of Dimora.
"Don't make yourself crazy, okay, Dimora said. "...If it works, it works."
After securing one of the condos, Payne told Dimora he would drop off the key en route to taking his daughter to a birthday party.
"I appreciate your due diligence on this for me," Dimora said. "You're a good man."
Payne had access to the condo development through architect Robert Corna, he said in the recordings. Corna partnered with The K&D Group and developer Doug Price to design and build the complex, which consists of three buildings near the Superior Viaduct.
K&D's lawyer, Virginia Davidson, said this week that Corna is no longer associated with the development.
At the time, Davidson said, Corna was one of several partners involved in the development. He was in charge of construction management, including on-site operations. K&D, she said, provided property management services, for example, sales, rentals and accounting services. Corna did not respond to a call or email for comment.
Midday update of Jimmy Dimora's trial for Tuesday, Jan. 24 Plain Dealer reporter Peter Krouse updates you on what happened during the morning session of the county corruption trial of former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora in Akron.
Dimora and his friends used the condo on other occasions, according to Massie. And again, Dimora raised the subject of sex.
During the planning for a poker game one night, Dimora asked if there was going to be a little "gumar," an Italian slang term for a mistress or girlfriend.
Prosecutors alluded to other connections between Dimora, his friends and women. They played a recording of Kelley, who was with Dimora at the time, calling Payne and looking for the number of a woman named Rebecca.
"I don't know how to get a hold of her," Payne replied.
Massie testified that Rebecca is Rebecca Johnson, a female escort hired by Payne to provide services to Dimora, and that she advertises in Scene magazine and on Eros.com
Other documents presented in court showed how Payne arranged for Johnson and another woman, Allyson Peterson, to be picked up in a limousine and taken different places.
Payne, who was a lawyer, represented "A Touch of Class," a limousine service, and often bartered with his client for transportation services. Travel logs showed Peterson, who sometimes lived in Florida, being picked up at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Another log had a Payne-provided limo picking up a young woman, in Toledo and bringing her to the Cleveland area. Massie identified the woman as escort LaTanya Calhoun, who goes by the name Egypt.
Payne, who eventually pleaded guilty to bribery and other crimes and began cooperating with prosecutors, died of thyroid cancer in 2010. Kelley also has pleaded guilty to corruption-related crimes and is expected to testify against Dimora.
The owner of the limo service, Frank Pistone, was one of the final witnesses Tuesday.
He testified that Kelley had arranged for others -- including Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason, former County Recorder Patrick OMalley and former County Auditor Frank Russo -- to receive rides for unspecified purposes. Mason did not return a call Tuesday for comment.
Eventually, according to Pistone, some of the limo drivers objected to taking Payne or Dimora because the men didn't tip or delayed making the payments by weeks or months.
Prosecutors presented a September 2003 invoice for limo service arranged by Payne that took Dimora, two escorts and others to an Indians game at Jacobs Field. On the front of the invoice, the driver had written in large block letters: NO TIP FROM KEVIN.
Reporters James McCarty, Rachel Dissell and Stan Donaldson contributed to this story.
