Judge Asked to Determine Who Leaked Info
By Mike Hawkins
Published on July 22, 2005
After a weekly paper published a report, The Plain Dealer ran a previously delayed story about an investigation of the city's former mayor, and now a federal prosecutor is asking a judge to find out who leaked the information.
U.S. Attorney Gregory A. White filed the motion Thursday, the same day The Plain Dealer reported that former Mayor Michael R. White was a target of a federal investigation that began three years ago and that led to the indictment of one of White's friends.
The weekly newspaper Scene published a similar report Wednesday.
The story published Thursday was one of two that Doug Clifton, The Plain Dealer's editor, mentioned in a June 30 column about the legal battle that led to the jailing of a New York Times reporter who refused to divulge a source.
Clifton had said the newspaper wanted to write the stories but knew doing so probably would lead to an investigation over who leaked the documents.
At prosecutors' request, U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin set a hearing on the matter for Friday afternoon.
Assistant U.S. Attorney William Edwards said attorneys who had access to documents were expected to attend but that no subpoenas had been issued to order anyone to appear.
Clifton said the newspaper had not received a subpoena and did not expect to be part of the hearing. A phone message was left for Scene editor Pete Kotz.
Both editors said earlier that they intend to protect the identity of the person who provided the documents.
"If you rat a guy you're going to go to hell forever," Kotz said. "I'm not going to rat anybody."
After Scene wrote Wednesday's article on the investigation and reported that the story was one of those that The Plain Dealer was withholding, the newspaper's editors decided to publish it, Clifton said.
"Once another medium identified us as a holder of the documents in question, holding back the story became moot," Clifton said. "And we think that it was a public service to be done in reporting the contents of the affidavit."
The newspapers reported that the FBI investigated what it believed was widespread corruption at City Hall in which businesses paid bribes to Michael White for government contracts.
The U.S. attorney said the documents were two affidavits from FBI agents in support of obtaining wiretaps and a memo about an FBI interview with Ricardo Teamor, a confidant of Michael White's who pleaded guilty in April to bribery. The Plain Dealer reported that a lawyer it didn't identify allowed the newspaper to review the memo.
In the motion, prosecutor White said an intentional violation of the court order sealing the documents could constitute, at minimum, contempt of court.
The former mayor, who has not been charged with any crime, could not be reached to comment Thursday. Messages seeking comment were made by telephone, fax and e-mail to a farm in Tuscarawas County, about 60 miles south of Cleveland, where he raises alpacas. He left office in 2002 after serving 12 years.
The affidavit was an effort to get wiretaps on Gray's phones. Matia approved that request.
William Whitaker, Gray's lawyer, said Gray was a legitimate businessman. Gray, of suburban Cleveland, was acquitted this month by a federal jury of four counts of wire fraud. He is to be retried on 40 counts that the jury failed to reach a verdict on, including conspiracy and bribery.
Gray was accused of being part of a conspiracy in which bribes were paid in exchange for public contracts in Cleveland, East Cleveland, Houston and New Orleans.
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