President Biden reduces the sentence of the ex-Cuyahoga County Commissioner

CLEVELAND — President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora.

According to a press release from the White House, Dimora was one of 1,499 people granted commutation by President Biden on Thursday.

“I’m very happy for Jimmy. He’s a free man at last,” Dimora’s attorney Philip S. Kushner in a statement to 3News.

Dimora was released from prison in June 2023 after serving nearly 12 years for public corruption charges. He had still been under home confinement prior to Thursday.

Dimora had been serving his 23-year prison sentence at the Devens Federal Medical Center in Massachusetts. His sentence was reduced from 28 years after a partial appellate court win in 2022.

At this time of his release, the former Cuyahoga County Democratic Party leader had been in poor health and was granted release under the CARES Act. As a result of his initial release, Dimora was to remain under house arrest until 2030.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement addressing all of the pardons. “As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

Dimora was convicted in July 2012 on 32 counts, including the Hobbs Act, bribery and other charges. Federal prosecutors said Dimora “used his office to engage in a series of wide-ranging bribery and fraud schemes wherein he ‘received over $250,000 in bribes, including ‘home renovations, expensive dinners, trips, … and encounters with prostitutes.'”

In multiple conversations with 3News during his prison term, Dimora continually insisted on his innocence, stating that he was just one of three county commissioners who voted on contracts and any gifts he received were noted in ethics reports filed with the state of Ohio.

Former Cuyahoga County Jim Rokakis was among those calling for Dimora to resign as commissioner in 2010, before a trial had even taken place. More than a decade later, he led a letter-writing campaign for Dimora’s early release.

“The (original) sentence was ridiculous. The 28-year sentence for the crimes he committed was totally disproportionate to the crime,” Rokakis said in an interview Thursday. “People do double-murders and get out in 12.”

Joining Rokakis in expressing sympathy for Dimora’s plight was another former county commissioner: Peter Lawson Jones, who has since left politics and become an actor.

“By any fair measure, Jimmy has fully paid his debt to society,” Jones wrote in his own letter supporting Dimora’s release. “Yes, he engaged in acts of malfeasance for which he has paid dearly, but he should not be left to suffer and die in jail.”

Jones, along with Dimora and Tim Hagan, made up the three-member Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners in its final days. In 2009, with the scandal still heating up and Dimora still yet to be arrested, voters scrapped the commission and the entire system of government which had been in place for 200 years, instead ushering in an 11-member county council along with a single elected county executive.

The first such executive was Ed FitzGerald, who took office in 2011 as the cloud of Dimora and others lingered. Unlike Rokakis and Jones, FitzGerald was strongly against clemency for Dimora.

“I’m all for having compassion, but I proudly reserve my compassion for people that are innocent victims. I don’t view him as an innocent victim,” FitzGerald told 3News. “If somebody is a family member of his or they’re personal friends with him, and they want to have compassion or they’re sympathetic, that’s fine, but we’re supposed to have a justice system where if you do the crime, you’re supposed to do the time.”

3News’ Dave DeNatale contributed to this report.