The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 11

Friday, May 20, 1983 Akron Beacon Journal A11 JUDGE VS. JUDGEAccusations are made The text of judge's affidavit Climaco has reputation for playing tough lllllStf Blfe mm nWmm til By Peter Phlpps and Dan Cook Beacon Journal staff writers At the Teamsters' convention in Arizona last month, Cleveland lawyer John Climaco stood at poolside in his swimming trunks, defending the union's next president against federal corruption charges. A circle of reporters, some in bathing suits and some in business suits, kept Climaco out of the water for an hour. More than 1,000 miles away in Toledo, Climaco himself was under scrutiny by a federal grand jury investigating the relationship between his law firm and Chief U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti of Cleveland.

Now, one of Battisti's colleagues, U. S. District Judge Ann Aldrich, has released an affidavit linking Climaco and Battisti in an alleged payoff scheme. Climaco, 41, the oldest son of a Cleveland steel worker, is in the middle of two of the biggest investigations in the state. The burly lawyer may well hold the fates of Teamsters' president Jackie Presser and Judge Battisti in his hands.

In one case, Climaco is on the defense: He is accused of hiring, then paying, Battisti's nephew, Gino, 10 percent of the fees for legal work the judge allegedly delivered to his firm, Climaco, Seminatore, Lefkowitz Kaplan. He has hired a Cincinnati law firm to represent him during the grand jury's investigation. In the other case, Climaco is on the offense: He is Presser 's attorney, countering allegations that while a Cleveland Teamsters' leader, Presser put ghost employees on his office payroll. Presser and his aides profess complete faith in Climaco's ability to defend Presser against the charges. Last summer, Presser credited Climaco with thwarting a U.

S. Labor Department charge that Presser kicked back $300,000 on a union public relations contract. "This man saved my life," Presser said of Climaco's work last year. Another big client, Cleveland City Council president George Forbes, also a lawyer, has praised Climaco as "one of the best" attorneys in town. While Climaco's law practice allows him to send one of his two children to private school and to maintain offices in Cleveland and Los Angeles, his personal life has not been trouble-free.

Six months ago, a fire that is still under investigation destroyed the $300,000 home he was building for his family on five acres in the wealthy Cleveland suburb of Gates Mills. In November, Fire Chief Gary Pesuit listed the cause as "undetermined" and turned the investigation over to the state. State fire marshal Harry Lyons said he could not discuss the eause of the fire until his John Climaco was building for his family in Gates Mills This is the text of U. S. District Judge Ann Aldrich's affidavit: "This affidavit is prepared and submitted at the request of Judge Pierce Lively, pursuant to our telephone conversation of Sept.

29, 1982. "On Dec. 19, 1981, I attended an evening Christmas party hosted by the Climaco law firm at Mike Climaco's parents' home on the near west side. During the course of the evening, Gino Battisti, a nephew of Chief Judge Frank Battisti, appeared to have become somewhat drunk. "He rather proudly told me that although he was but a first-year associate of the firm (he was hired, I believe, in May or June of 1980 and had been working there since August of that year), his IRS 1040 would show that he had earned an income during 1981 of $61,000 as salary.

"He further told me that this $61,000 was based, at least in part, on a 'deal that was cut' whereby he would receive as compensation 10 percent of what the firm took in in fees as examiner in the White Motor case. Gino seemed impressed by this compensation, which he thought was very good for so recent a graduate of Cleveland State law school. We had no further conversation about this matter. "During the week of June 21, 1982, William Trencher of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, asked me if I would ask Shimon Kaplan, a partner in the Cbmaco firm, if he could get the specific figures with respect to Gino's salary and bonus for 1981, as well as information with respect to the bonuses of other associates. "Mr.

Kaplan checked those records over a weekend (I believe June 25-27) and told me that the law firm's books showed the following: Gino's base salary for the year 1981 was $19,000. "On Aug. 1, 1981, the firm gave a $1,000 bonus to each of its employees. In December 1981, Gino got a $40,000 bonus. Mr.

Kaplan also said that in 1981 the firm handled three cases 'attributable to Frank Battisti (White Motor, Revco and Ohio Hoist) and that during 1981 the firm had actually received (with respect to those cases) a total of $420,000. "From this, Mr. Kaplan told me he concluded that Gino received as a bonus roughly 10 percent of all amounts received by the firm from the cases 'attributable' to Frank Battisti. "Mr. Kaplan told me that more than $420,000 may have been billed for calendar year 1981, but that the actual amount that had been paid to, or received by, the firm during that year was $420,000.

"With respect to other associates' bonuses, Mr. Kaplan said that Tom Colaluca (a Cleveland State law school graduate in 1977 or 1978) and Dennis Wilcox each received a bonus of $5,000. "Associates Allen Marabito, Terry Ahem (who graduated in Gino's class) and Mike Gallucci each received bonuses in the range. According to Mr. Kaplan, bonuses were supposed to be related to performance and to business brought into the firm.

"I reported this information to Mr. Trencher on June 29, 1982." ing the government bribery case against Mahoning County Sheriff James Traficant. She also was the judge in one of the leading Canton police brutality cases. Her sentencing of Mennonite draft resister Mark Schmucker of Alliance was praised as fair and sensitive. Instead of sending Schmucker to prison, Judge Aldrich fined him $4,000 and ordered him to work for two years at a home for the mentally retarded.

and put him to work on the Cleveland City Council account. Later, when Kent State University went to court to challenge the validity of professor Vladimir Simunek's computer model for economic forecasts, Kaplan sounded like a mathematics professor as he questioned Simunek on the fine points of his economic theory. Kaplan, 42 and single, has known U. S. District Judge Ann Aldrich since law school, where the judge was one of his During the fight over the city's finances, Kucinich and his aides charge, Climaco did more than simply advise and defend his clients.

For example, they contend that on the night the city defaulted in December 1978, Climaco tried to convince the council that it could legally ignore Kucinich's call for one last meeting to try to avoid default. The council was not willing to play it so rough. But Garofoli, like a number of others, cites Climaco's aggressiveness as one of the primary reasons for his success. PORTAGE COUNTY Common Pleas Judge George Martin got a taste of Climaco's combative style in March in the Kent State University Foundation's suit against economics professor Vladimir Simunek. After a few days, Martin admitted he could not keep up with Climaco and his associate.

He then sarcastically called Climaco a "hot-shot Cleveland lawyer." Climaco immediately moved for a mistrial and told Martin John Climaco has celebrity clients arson bureau completes its investigation. "I REALLY don't know what caused the fire. It was a terrible tragedy," Climaco said. "But it's not unusual for a client's enemies to strike out at his attorney. I guess it's something of an occupational hazard." Climaco hesitated to talk at length about the fire or his career.

But he has been a well-known figure in Cleveland and Hollywood for nearly a decade. His clients have ranged from a Cuyahoga County landfill owner to pntertainers Sammy Davis Jr. and Dionne Warwick. A Cleveland accountant introduced Davis and Climaco about eight years ago. Since then, the relationship has grown: Climaco now negotiates Davis' record and concert contracts and is his personal counselor.

Other clients repesented by Climaco or his 11 associates have included the Cleveland City Council, former Ohio Attorney General William J. Brown, Cleveland developer Carl Mil-stein, the Cleveland Fraternal Order of Police, a number of Cleveland businesses and reputed Mafia strongman Eugene Ciasullo. CLIMACO started as a labor lawyer in 1967, defending city workers before the Cleveland civil service commission. Friends say he worked hard to learn the city's complicated work rules, then hammered the commission for his blue-collar clients. He quickly gained a reputation as a lawyer who combined "bluster and brains," according to a friend.

Even his enemies concede he works long hours. "He doesn't let much grass grow under him," one lawyer said. His career began to roll in the early 1970s. In 1972, his brother, Michael, was elected to the council; in 1973, Climaco and former Cleveland policeman James Magas tried unsuccessfully to organize public employees around the state for the Teamsters. trative Office of the U.

S. Courts, a panel of appeals and district judges was about to issue a report about Schlachet's conduct when he resigned. Last fall, Schlachet's former law partner, Lewis A. Zipkin, was convicted of embezzlement in a bankruptcy case as the FBI's probe of bankruptcy court accelerated. In March, the grand jury in Toledo began hearing evidence about Battisti.

Witnesses so far have included Zipkin; federal judges Ann Aldrich and John Ray members of the Cleveland law firm of Climaco, Seminatore, Lefkowitz Kaplan; and other Cleveland attorneys. The grand jury, which has been meeting every other week, has not completed its work. The charges against Battisti reportedly include his failure to report an apparent crime to the FBI involving Zipkin and allegations that the Climaco firm hired the judge's nephew and paid him a $40,000 bonus in exchange for Battisti's steering federal cases to the firm. The Climaco firm has denied the allegations. that "since the inception of this trial, the court has repeatedly interrupted witnesses, cross-examined witnesses and made comments." Climaco, instead of a local lawyer, appeared in Martin's Ravenna courtroom largely because of his politics.

Former Attorney General Brown appointed Climaco as Kent State's lawyer more than three years earlier, after Climaco and his firm for years had supported Brown loyally for attorney general and later for governor. Such relationships between the attorney general and the lawyers he hires outside Columbus are common in Ohio. In the case of Judge Battisti, however, Judge Aldrich's affidavit raises questions about whether Climaco and his associates might have overstepped the boundaries of law and ethics in the pursuit of clients. In the summer of 1980, Climaco and his associates hired Judge Battisti's nephew, a young lawyer whom Battisti affectionately regarded as his own son. in consumer and environmental law, she taught law at Cleveland State University for 12 years before becoming the first female judge in U.

S. District Court in Ohio. She was nominated to the bench in 1979 by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio. In three years, she has handled a number of high-publicity cases.

She presided ovej- the libel actions filed as a result of the ABC-TV 2020 program about political corruption in Akron and is hear Fire destroyed the house These contacts with the council and the Teamsters proved valuable, helping Climaco move up into positions of influence with the union and City Hall's Democratic majority. Michael Climaco helped cement his brother's relationship with Forbes by standing with a small group of white council members who voted for Forbes, who is black, for council president. "I believe my brother was the first white councilman to support Forbes," Climaco said. "To this day, it's one of his proudest moments." "The guy was thankful," one top Cuyahoga Democrat said of Forbes' reaction. A FEW YEARS after Forbes' election, he and Tony Garofoli, then co-chairmen of the Cuyahoga Democratic party, named Climaco party treasurer.

Later, during the embattled term of former Mayor Dennis Kucinich, the council, on Forbes' recommendation, paid the Climaco firm nearly to defend itself. if jr Ann Aldrich speaks her mind 5' AZ -Sit. Shimon Kaplan statistical expert 1 A 4 '-y Grand jury's probe of a judge is unusual Free-spirited judge first woman to sit on district bench in Ohio Kaplan is viewed as intellectual U. S. District Judge Ann Aldrich part scholar, part free spirit has said some most remarkable things.

After her appointment as judge in 1980, a reporter asked her how she, the mother of four sons, would relive her life if given the chance. "I'd have all of the kids and none of the husbands," she joked. Judge Aldrich, 54, has been married twice. Her first marriage ended in divorce. Her second husband died.

Items adorning her office customarily would be associated with men. A sailfish she caught off Acapulco is on the lobby wall. A riddled firing range target hangs on her door. But one day in court, after a lawyer asked her to reconsider a ruling, she said: "Sure. Have you ever known a woman who wouldn't change her mind?" After being graduated fourth in her class at Columbia University with a bachelor's degree, Judge Aldrich went to New York University Law School.

She also attended the Institute of Higher International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. A specialist Since March, a grand jury in Toledo has focused on allegations against Chief U. S. District Judge Frank J. Battisti.

In January, Chief Judge George C. Edwards Jr. of the 6th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ordered that a grand jury be impaneled to investigate the judge a rare procedure.

The review of Battisti's conduct was prompted by published reports that suggested he had used his position as a federal judge to benefit his friends and relatives. If true, it would be a violation of judicial ethics and possibly criminal law. As early as the fall of 1981, the FBI had been investigating irregularities in bankruptcy cases assigned to former Bankruptcy Judge Mark Schlachet, who resigned Oct. 4. The government's investigation focused first on Schlachet, son-in-law of Leslie Brown, a close friend of Battisti's.

Battisti reportedly maneuvered to have Schlachet appointed clerk of federal courts and, later, bankruptcy judge in Cleveland. Based on evidence gathered by investigators from the Adminis Soft-spoken Shimon Kaplan generally is regarded as the intellectual in the street-wise Cleveland law firm of Climaco, Seminatore, Lefkowitz Kaplan. A naturalized U. S. citizen born in Israel, Kaplan took up a law practice relatively late in life, when he was 37.

He already had a graduate degree in oceanography and a special knowledge of statistics when he enrolled in Cleveland State University law school. John Climaco hired Kaplan right out of law school in 1977.