Lawyer: Imprisoned former Cuyahoga County commissioner has virus
Former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, who is serving his decades-long sentence at a federal prison in Ohio where nine inmates have died from the coronavirus, has tested positive for the virus, his attorney said Sunday.
Dimora, 64, informed his lawyer David Mills late Friday of the test result. Mills and co-counsel Philip Kushner have urged the warden at Federal Correctional Institution Elkton several times in recent weeks to release Dimora on home confinement because of his medical ailments, including a weakened immune system. The warden wrote back and said Dimora is not eligible for release, according to correspondence Mills provided.
The lawyers’ priorities shifted after Dimora tested positive, from trying to secure his release to making sure he receives proper medical care, Mills said in an interview.
“We, along with his family and friends, are concerned,” Mills wrote in a Saturday letter to Warden Mark Williams that expressed disappointment with the positive test result. “We want to ensure he receives proper medical care. We ask that you keep us informed of his condition, including any progression of his symptoms. In addition, if you are contemplating any change in his location, including to a hospital, please let us know immediately.”
Mills said he has exchanged emails with the former commissioner and county Democratic Party chairman every day for the past two months but has not heard from him since Friday, when he disclosed the positive test result. Dimora’s current condition wasn’t immediately clear, though Mills said Dimora wrote in an email that he did not feel ill as of early last week.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ media office did not immediately respond to an email.
Dimora is serving a 28-year prison sentence for racketeering and dozens of other federal convictions. Prosecutors at his 2012 trial portrayed him as the embodiment of the pay-to-play system that was rampant in the county for decades, saying he took bribes and received lavish treatment in exchange for influence.
He has served more than eight years of his sentence and is not slated for release until 2036. Mills in April argued to a federal appeals court in Cincinnati that the former commissioner should receive a new trial and said the instructions the jury received before deliberating at his trial were faulty.
He was one of the most powerful people to be convicted as part of a years-long federal probe into county corruption. Dozens of elected officials, contractors and government employees were sentenced as part of the sprawling investigation, and Dimora received the longest sentence of any of them.
His friend, former county Auditor Frank Russo, was released from a medical prison in North Carolina to home confinement earlier this month because of the virus.
Elkton — a low-security compound located in Columbiana County, about 100 miles southeast of Cleveland — has become a national example for how quickly the coronavirus can spread in prisons, where inmates often have no choice but to live in close quarters and may lack access to adequate medical care. The main facility and a satellite prison house more than 2,300 male inmates.
In addition to the nine deaths, 131 inmates were positive for the virus as of Saturday, along with eight staff members, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Seventy inmates have recovered, as have 45 staff members.
The virus and officials’ response to it prompted the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio to sue the prisons bureau to force it to take more drastic steps. U.S. District Judge James
Gwin in Cleveland ordered the prisons bureau in April to either release or transfer inmates particularly susceptible to illness associated with the virus.
Dimora is on a list of more than 800 inmates that officials deemed at risk.
Gwin wrote Tuesday that the prisons bureau’s response to his April order was lacking, ordering it to speed up efforts and relax requirements for inmates who qualify for home confinement.
Mills argued that Dimora fits the criteria for home confinement that Attorney General William Barr outlined in an effort to reduce the incarcerated federal inmate population, including that he is a nonviolent offender and had no incident reports in the past year.
Despite that, officials have refused to release the former commissioner.