Posted on 05/27/2009 3:07:02 PM PDT by GOP_Lady
Part of ongoing probe of corruption in Cuyahoga County government.
(Cleveland) - Two more Cleveland building inspectors are now facing extortion charges. James McCullough and Juan Alejandro have been suspended without pay.
Cleveland FBI Special Agent In Charge Frank Figliuzzi says McCullough and Alejandro would take money for posting violation notices on homes. That lowered their value. The notices would then be removed, and the houses sold at a higher price. Figliuzzi says they were nabbed by an undercover FBI agent who posed as a real estate investor from New York. According to the FBI, McCullough took $1,530 in cash and Alejandro took $800. Mayor Frank Jackson is having guidelines drafted for proper conduct for city officials. This comes after federal prosecutors have already charged four other Cleveland building inspectors with crimes. Richard Huberty pleaded guilty to 10 counts of extortion and bribery. Earlier this month, Bobby Cuevas, Lawrence Skule and Richard Kocuba were charged with extortion. Figliuzzi says this ends the FBI's investigation of the building inspectors. He also says this is not related to the ongoing investigation of Cuyahoga County corruption.
James McCullough Juan Alejandro
Northeast Ohio PING, please! :-)
When I was growing up in Chicago, the plum job was building/restaurant inspector. It paid $11,000 per year (1960’s dollars), but all the inspectors lived in $250,000 homes (now worth a few million). I guess they didn’t pay taxes on their bribes.
Hope and change, baby. Hope and change.
There are no Republicans in Cleveland!
The faces at the front line of the economic stimulus plan... (theirs)
So it’s fine to be homeless, or sleeping in your car, but if you have a house, and because you are city taxed,state taxed, federal taxed, fined, feed, permitted, licensed into poverty......you get sticker ed.
You got to love those that support ‘reasonable’ increase in the power and intervention of the state.
The good news, neither one of them inspected my building/storefront after the accident with the pick up truck......
No, these 2 mensas DID NOT inspect my building after the accident. Even if they did, what could I bribe them with, a bag of pork rinds with tire tracks on it..........
Racism...isn’t it obvious?
LMAO
I thought you might like that one.
Cleveland building dept. What a joke, at least from a homeowner perspective.
Their whole system is designed to force you into using contractors - little information online, open 8-5 weekdays, everything done in person or by mail, no credit cards - only checks or cash.
Sadly, they could dramatically improve both revenue and compliance by simply setting up shop in HD or Lowe’s where you could submit plans and get code summaries, and approval on the spot while buying materials. HD and Lowe’s sell more stuff, consumers do things right, the city gets increased permit revenue - everybody’s happy.
Instead, we have an antiquated system for consumers augmented by a system of bribery and corruption.
Consumers/homeowners and most contractors ignore the codes since they’re too difficult to lookup and interpret, and going through the permit/approval/inspection process is so cumbersome and time-consuming that most just pretend it doesn’t exist.
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