Report: Ohio officials can’t explain land deal

An FBI raid last month targeted information on a land deal for a juvenile detention center.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Cuyahoga County officials are at a loss to explain why the county spent $2.75 million to buy land for a juvenile detention center when it could have bought the same land at a public auction for a small fraction of that price just seven months before, a newspaper reported Sunday.

County commissioners celebrated in late February 2000 when they signed the deal to buy the land from Sunrise Land Co., a move that ended a 14-year search for the home for a much-needed juvenile detention center, according to The Plain Dealer.

In July 1999, Sunrise, a subsidiary of Forest City Enterprises Inc., had bought most of the land at a county auditor’s sale for about $400,000. The county didn’t bid on the land.

Information on the land deal on Cleveland’s East Side was a target in FBI raids last month on the homes and offices of county officials, including County Commissioner Jimmy DiMora, according to the newspaper. Bill Edwards, acting U.S. attorney in Cleveland, refused to comment on the scope of the public corruption investigation regarding the juvenile justice complex.

DiMora is the only one of the three commissioners who signed off on the 2000 transaction who is still in office. Auditor Frank Russo, another target in the federal raids, was serving his first elected term when the land was sold by his office.

Neither DiMora nor Russo responded to interview requests from The Plain Dealer about why the county didn’t get the property in a much cheaper fashion.

Telephone messages seeking comment were left by The Associated Press Sunday at the offices of DiMora and Russo.

“I don’t see any reason they couldn’t have,” said Craig Miller, an attorney who specializes in property law for Ulmer & Berne LLP in Cleveland.

In 1997, then-Mayor Michael White called the land “the worst environmental hazard in the city.” Two years later he recommended it as a site for the juvenile center, the newspaper said.

The county later had to pay at least $10 million to study and remove contaminated soil and other debris on the largest portion of the property. The $160 million juvenile justice complex is now being built at the site.

The city could have simply claimed the land as it was entitled to do and transferred it to the county, according to the newspaper.

White did not respond to four e-mail requests for an interview. The Associated Press left a message seeking comment Sunday at White’s home in Newcomerstown.

Tim McCormack and Jane Campbell, the two commissioners who signed off on the deal with DiMora, said last week they focused on getting the center built and getting guarantees the land was environmentally sound for the children.

“We were assured that was the case,” Campbell said in an e-mail.