Ohio: Cuyahoga County

The resignation came about 30 minutes after the newspaper asked his office about the latest set of allegations: that he accepted birthday and Christmas cards stuffed with cash from employees.

The 32-year sheriff cited failing health as the reason for his resignation, which will take effect April 1.

Since January, The Plain Dealer has published 17 stories about how McFaul runs his office. The stories documented his hiring and promoting practices, illegal fundraising and favoritism for friends and political allies. Pay records show he goes to the office only about one day a week.

A Plain Dealer story in February led to the appointment of a special prosecutor from Toledo to investigate whether McFaul broke the law when he coached his girlfriend to dodge a subpoena in a 1986 sexual-harassment complaint against him.

• Read The Plain Dealer's full coverage of the sheriff's office.

There have been 115 weeks from Jan. 1, 2007, through Friday. McFaul worked in his Justice Center office 136 days since then. County timesheets show he worked from home 353 days during that time.

McFaul recently told The Plain Dealer he is in the office four to five days a week.

"I'm here all the time," McFaul said last month. "I'm never gone for extended periods."

A Plain Dealer analysis of McFaul's pay records show otherwise.

McFaul, 74, earns about $110,000 a year. He was re-elected to his ninth four-year term in November.

COLUMBUS -- Flanked by 25 new Columbus police recruits whose jobs were saved with federal stimulus money, President Barack Obama today announced that $2 billion in recovery funds would go to law enforcement agencies across the country.

"This city needs the courage and conviction of this graduating class to keep it safe," Obama said at the recruits' graduation ceremony. "This economy needs your employment to keep it running."

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder attended the graduation ceremony for the recruits, whose class had been laid off in January before they could report for duty.

The Democratic president used the opportunity to tout the recently passed $790 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will help preserve the recruits' jobs.

This was reported yesterday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Printing machine model numbers on Cleveland schools invoices are phony, sheriff’s detective says.

Not only did the Cleveland schools fail to receive six printing machines at the center of a state and county investigation, but a detective says the equipment never existed.

Model numbers on the invoices are similar to some used by Ryobi, the company listed as the manufacturer. But the numbers are phony, Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Detective David Lisy said.

State auditors and sheriff’s detectives are investigating no-bid purchases that the district made from Toledo-based Superior Offset Supplies. The company received $148,500 for the machines, plus $11,700 for consulting.