Update: The PD reports Sabra Pierce Scott pleaded guilty today, admitting she accepted a $2,000 bribe and asked a developer whose description matches Michael Forlani for a job for her son. In exchange she took his VA project under her wing and did everything in her power on council to help get the project completed. She is cooperating with prosecutors.
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Cleveland City Hall had been largely unscathed by the Cuyahoga County corruption mess until now.
That changed today when former councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott was charged with conspiracy to commit bribery by the Feds for allegedly soliciting a $2,000 sum from a businessman to use on her daughter’s tuition and soliciting a job for her son at Michael Forlani’s companies. (Read the charges here.) All incidents happened from 2005-2007.
Pierce Scott abruptly resigned in 2009, the same year she managed Mayor Frank Jackson’s re-election campaign.
The charges surround Pierce Scott’s relationship with Forlani, president of Doan Pyramid and an executive of Veteran’s Development LLC, the company that in 2006 built the $120 million office tower complex at Louis Stokes Veterans Affairs Medical Center at University Circle that is leased to the Veterans Administration. That project matches the description in the Information as the description of Forlani, who is not named.
This article appears in Oct 12-18, 2011.
Absolutely pathetic. On a side-note, that is truly embarrassing that she didn’t have enough faith in her own son for him to get an honest job on his own. Good luck finding a one now!