The raid began at the start of the Monday business day. Agents searched the third and fourth floors of the county administration building—focusing on the offices of County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Auditor Frank Russo. Investigators also showed up at the their homes, taking pictures, and carting evidence away in U-Haul trucks. In addition, the FBI and IRS targeted construction companies, the county's IT administrator Kevin Kelley and Russo's son Vince.
FBI officials say it's part of a long-running public corruption investigation, but declined to give details. The affidavits that support the search warrants have been sealed by the federal court.
Frank Figliuzzi is the special agent in charge of the FBI's Cleveland division.
FIGLIUZZI: I think we're going to try to move with all due haste here and the public should see the fruits of this labor in the next few months.
That’s once the warrants in the case are unsealed.
In the meantime, a cloud of suspicion will linger over the county government until more details are revealed.
Dimora and Russo appear to be at the center of this case. Dimora is also the chairman of the county Democratic Party and both men are well-connected key players in local democratic politics. Jerry Austin is a democratic strategist.
AUSTIN: They are two of the best retail politicians that this county has ever seen. People like them; they go to all these events that politicians don't usually like to go to.
Dimora and Russo have also been at the center of recent Plain Dealer articles into alleged patronage in their offices.
But, Austin urges the public to stop speculating before more details emerge.
AUSTIN: The bark may be worse than the bite.
That said, officials are indicating that this case will be a big one. Figliuzzi of the FBI says this region has never seen a case of this magnitude.
FIGLIUZZI: This is unprecedented in terms of the public corruption and white collar crime—in terms of the manpower, locations, and depth to which this investigation has gone.
While this case likely centers on questionable construction deals at the homes of Dimora and Russo, the scale of yesterday’s raid, say legal experts, suggests that this case could go beyond that. Geoff Mearns is the dean of the Cleveland Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University.
MEARNS: None of us on the outside really know how long this has been going on, but given the scope and number of search warrants that were executed, it's reasonable to assume that the FBI and the US Attorney Office have been conducting this investigation for many months.
This case may bring back memories of the high-profile FBI investigation into then East Cleveland mayor Emmanuel Onunwor and businessman Nate Gray a few years ago. But Mearns says the sight this week of federal agents searching personal homes implies this case is different.
MEARNS: This is an order magnitude different from that particular investigation.
As we wait for more details in the investigation, FBI spokesman Scott Wilson says the bureau sees this as a duty.
WILSON: If we're not investigating corruption issues, we know no one else will.