Jimmy Dimora

Make that number 50.

Ex-Cuyahoga County, Ohio, commissioner Jimmy Dimora was convicted Friday on public corruption charges that involved taking bribes and gifts and prostitutes.

He becomes the 50th person  convicted in an ongoing  federal investigation into corruption in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland.

A federal jury convicted him of racketeering, bribery, conspiracy, Hobbs Act conspiracy, tax charges and other crimes. Co-defendant Michael Gabor, 52, was also conviced.

Both men were ordered detained.

Authorities said that Dimora took more than $166,000 worth of bribes in the form of cash, home improvements, lavish meals at high-end restaurants, services from prostitutes, gambling trips to Las Vegas and Canada, and other items, according to testimony.

In exchange, he Dimora helped steer contracts to allies, get jobs and raises for associates, intercede with judges on pending cases, lobby for grants and favorable loans for people who paid him and other official actions, according to testimony.

Allan Lengel

The NCAA and Auburn University have contacted the FBI about point-shaving allegations involving the school’s men’s basketball program, CNN reported.

“We are very concerned by the point-shaving allegations involving Auburn University men’s basketball program and have been in contact with the school and the FBI since the issue arose in February,” the NCAA said this week in a statement, according to CNN

“The NCAA takes any allegation of point shaving very seriously because sports wagering threatens two of our core principles — the well-being of student-athletes and the very integrity of intercollegiate sport.”

By Allan Lengel

The FBI kept a file on the  late outspoken writer Christopher Hitchens, the website Historiographic Anarchy reports.

The website reported that the FBI released through the Freedom of Information Act, 19 pages on Hitchens, some which show he was the subject of an FBI Foreign Counterintelligence probe. He died in December at age 62 after a long fight with cancer.

The site reported that the first two pages involve a check requested by the Immigration and Naturalization in March 2005.

The next five pages reveal that he was the subject of a foreign counterintelligence probe and there is a discussion of his socialist-Trotskyist activities in Oxford and that he was traveling in the U.S. on a student scholarship.

Files also pertained to a Secret Service request for info in 1983 after Hitchens requested a White House press pass.

To read more click here.

By Allan Lengel

The Minnesota FBI, which also covers North and South Dakota, has moved.

The Associated Press reports that the office has moved from downtown Minneapolis to a standalone facility in the suburb of Brooklyn Center, just northwest of the city.

Features of the new facility include bulletproof glass and blast-proof walls.