Ricardo Teamor, the henchman of former Mayor Mike White who recently finished a sentence for bribing former City Councilman Joe Jones, is back on the job.
He's been hired as "manager of special projects" Irwin Industries, a California company that provides construction, maintenance, and energy services to industrial outfits. The company also happens to be owned by Ray Park, the multimillionaire who sold the I-X Center to the City of Cleveland eight years ago.
Teamor and Park are old friends. According to the FBI, Teamor represented Park on the I-X Center sale ("
The Sweetest Deal," April 5, 2006). He must have been a good lawyer. The city paid $66.5 million — twice what the only other bidder was offering. And according to the feds, Teamor's cut was $6.6 million.
According to the Irwin company newsletter, Teamor "has an outstanding track record for building businesses and quickly identifying and taking advantage of emerging industry trends."
That's funny, because Teamor also admitted to collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Hopkins airport expansion project, though his construction company was simply a front that did little or no work.
Clearly, Irwin has been discussing industry "trends" with the FBI.
— Lisa Rab
