Former Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo, whose testimony helped put Jimmy Dimora in prison, had his own sentence reduced on Thursday.
A judge reduced Russo's 22-year sentence (which he began serving in 2012) to 14 years. The reduction means Russo will still be behind bars for just under eight more years, likely less when credit for good behavior is factored.
The hearing in U.S. District Court in Akron stemmed from Russo's guilty plea and cooperation in the Cuyahoga County corruption probe of roughly a decade ago.
Russo's lawyers had argued for a reduction to 11 years, with attorney Roger Synenberg calling him "a different man than he was."
"He's just asking for a break and some fairness," Synenberg told the judge.
Russo turned state's evidence and testified or threatened to testify in several corruption cases.
However, federal prosecutors desired a reduction to 188 months (just under 16 years). They argued to Judge Sara Lioi that the extent of Russo's cooperation "did not warrant such a drastic reduction."
"By the time he cooperated, there weren't many big fishes left in the pond," Megan Miller with the U.S. Attorney's Office said. She urged Lioi to reduce Russo's sentence to about 15 years.
She said it took Russo 843 days to pledge his cooperation following a highly-public raid in the county in July 2008. He did not, she said, finger new defendants or schemes, but merely fortified the cases already indicted.
Russo, dressed in prison beige and wearing an oxygen tube, said he cooperated to the best of his ability, and expressed surprise that investigators did not agree.
He gave a pained expression on his face when the judge denied the lighter sentence. About two dozen friends and family members attended the hearing.
"I worked very, very hard on the case and gave it my all with my heart," he told the judge via video from federal prison. "I'm a little shocked how the prosecution is looking at it."
Russo, 68, has asked to be transferred to a federal prison in North Carolina to continue receiving medical care for a variety of conditions. He told the judge that his health, in fact, precluded him from traveling to Akron to attend the hearing.
Dimora, who himself received a 28-year sentence for his crimes while in office as Cuyahoga County Commissioner, spoke to WKYC back in December. He the news station that it was actually Russo who was the true criminal in the case, and claimed the former auditor "made a deal with the devil."
Russo, for example, benefited to the tune of more than $1.6 million from his schemes. Prosecutors only proved Dimora received $98,000 in benefits from criminal conduct.
"If he gets re-sentenced for all the criminal activity he was involved in, the old saying that crime does not pay, is absolutely not true," Dimora said at the time. "Because Russo would be a poster child for showing that criminal activity is the way to go."