When Jimmy Dimora, a former sanitation worker and suburban mayor, took control of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in 1994, he became more than the face of the party.
He became the life of the party.
Through an affable manner and self-deprecating humor that belied his Boss Tweed-style backroom dealing, Dimora earned an almost cultlike following among local Democrats. In March -- eight months after an FBI raid on his home and office revealed Dimora to be a central figure in a massive public-corruption probe -- more than 600 elected officials and rank-and-file party members packed a Mayfield Heights party center to slap his back and celebrate the party's dominance in the county. The looming federal investigation didn't seem to tamp down their spirits.
Playing to the crowd, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich joined Dimora on stage after Dimora mocked his skinny frame and vegan diet. "You," Kucinich declared to a cheering crowd, "are the backbone of the Democratic Party in Ohio."
But criminal charges filed Friday against four men could change that. Despite silence from nearly every powerful Democrat in the region, the conduct laid out in the charges will surely make it hard for Dimora, also a county commissioner, to keep standing tall in a party whose other officers have been little more than names on stationery.
The documents written by federal prosecutors don't name Dimora or charge him with any crimes, but they do describe a seven-year pattern of sweeping corruption by someone identified only as Public Official 1. The description of Public Official 1 leaves no doubt about who it is: Dimora.
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