Shakedown Part I.

I hadn't wanted to get into this whole ménage à trois of Petro-lawyers-FBI. It seemed to belong unto the more boring aspect of campaigns, the mud-slinging type, wherein each side plays the little boy's game of one-upmanship: you're a meany; you're a double meany head; ... you're a meany head infinity x infinity with a cherry on top. But there is much here.

Blackwell's TV adds alledge that the FBI is investigating Petro's supposed shakedown of some lawyer firms who refused to contribute money to his campaign.

Well, on Feb 21 in the Cleveland Dispatch'spage A1, Joe Hallet reports (via Lexis Nexis)

Last week, a spokeswoman for Petro acknowledged that he had stripped $2 million in annual legal work from three Akron-area firms aligned with Summit County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, an avowed Petro enemy. An Akron lawyer close to Arshinkoff, Jack Morrison, has accused Petro of threatening to terminate a state contract with his firm if Morrison didn't pony up campaign cash. Petro denied the allegation and argued that it is part of an Arshinkoff vendetta. The FBI has made inquiries into Morrison's allegation.

The threats allegedly came in 2003, when the firms had refused to contribute to Petro's attorney general campaign.

Then it turned out that Blackwell gave $225,000 in unbid contracts to a lawyer (fee $175/hour), who is also suing Miami of Ohio university on behalf of State Rep. Tom Brinkman, a Blackwell insider, for providing benefits to same-sex couples in violation of the recently passed marriage ammendment. Brinkman is suing as a private citizen, since he has two children who attend there. Blackwell also asked the State's Controlling Board for $50,000 more to pay a lawyer who dealt with Blackwell's 2005 petition drive.

At the same meeting Petro asked for and received approval for $2.06 million, the millions mentioned above.
Petro then accused Blackwell of having payed $831,967, 161% more than Taft's $503,701 bill, for his terms as SOS for outside work. No mention is made of course about the very contentious 2004 election as well as Blackwell's attempt to get HAVA 2002 made into a federal statute. This law shuttled $125 million+ in federal aid to Ohio.

Of course the Attorney General's office paid $31.9 million in FY2005 as compared to $26.9 million FY 2002, the last year Petro was not in office. Petro blamed Blackwell.

New documents show that Akron's top lawyer told Petro that ceasing to do business with Arshinkhoff's firms, a Betty Montgomery appointee, would cost "unnecessary taxpayer dollars" and be an "undue hardship." Petro persisted.

And now we are where we are today. Petro is innocent until proven guilty, but he has at least steered business toward his friends, and not so much against his foes. Sniping at Blackwell I understand, but at Montgomery I don't. He comes off as a bit prickly in this whole affair.

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