LORAIN — Suspended Lorain Community Development Director Sandy Prudoff did the work he was supposed to do as a consultant for Alternatives Agency Inc., his attorney said Friday.

The FBI has told city officials that Prudoff is a target in a federal corruption probe that has led to the convictions of other consultants for Alternatives, a Cleveland transitional housing facility for parolees. A federal subpoena served on the city last week asked for information on Prudoff and everything the city had on Alternatives.

“I think the government has a theory that he was getting money for something he didn’t do, and I don’t think that’s the case,” said John Ricotta, Prudoff’s attorney.

Although Prudoff has declined to comment on the investigation, he did confirm in a March Plain Dealer story that he did work as a consultant for Alternatives, which has since been renamed the Cuyahoga Reentry Agency. He said his job was scouting locations for a possible expansion of the agency into the Lorain area.

“Mr. Prudoff’s position is that he was getting paid by them, but he was also doing work for them,” Ricotta said.

Although Prudoff told The Plain Dealer he never found a suitable location, Ricotta said he believes Prudoff may have found some locations that could have worked for Alternatives.

He said his client is putting that information together for him.

Alicia Handwerk, chief of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Bureau of Community Sanctions, said she does recall Alternatives discussing opening a halfway house in Lorain County around 2002. She said she doesn’t recall any of the proposal’s specifics and public records from that era have long since been destroyed.

“It was mostly a theoretical-type discussion,” Handwerk said. “I got the impression that they couldn’t find any place to locate it.”

Handwerk said she has discussed Alternatives with the FBI but wouldn’t say what questions she was asked.

Lorain/Medina Community Based Correction Facility Executive Director Mike Willets, who headed up the Lorain County Probation Department until 2005, said he doesn’t recall an Alternatives-run halfway house being discussed.

While he said he wouldn’t necessarily have been consulted on such a project, Willets also doesn’t believe opening such a facility in Lorain County makes financial sense. It would take at least 50 to 55 beds for such a facility to make any money, and the county simply wouldn’t generate enough prisoners being released from prison to justify those numbers, he said.

“I don’t think that it’s economically feasible to run a halfway house here. It just doesn’t pay,” he said.

However, Bart Hobart, the county’s current chief probation officer, said if a halfway house could bring in enough prisoners, even if they came from outside the county, it might work financially. He also said he doesn’t remember discussing the possibility of Alternatives opening a facility in the county.

Prudoff, who has not been charged, was placed on paid leave Sept. 10 after the FBI met with city officials. Ricotta said his client, who has been barred from appearing at City Hall without a police escort, is considering retiring.

Lorain Service Director Robert Gilchrist said Prudoff hasn’t submitted any retirement paperwork to the city, although he did drop off personal insurance forms at City Hall on Thursday.

The FBI and federal prosecutors have been investigating corruption in Cuyahoga County for more than a year and have racked up several convictions of people who have agreed to testify against others who are considered targets of the probe.

Among those whose homes and offices have been searched are Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora and Cuyahoga County Auditor Frank Russo, although no charges have been filed against them and both have denied wrongdoing.

Prudoff’s name doesn’t appear in any of the court documents filed so far in the Cuyahoga County corruption investigation, but court documents in the case of former Lakewood Mayor Anthony Sinagra indicate that several consultants for Alternatives are suspected of doing little or no work to justify the paychecks they received from the agency.

Sinagra has pleaded guilty to federal bribery and mail fraud charges.

The city of Lorain has turned up little in its search for information in the Community Development Department on Alternatives, but a personal invoice from Prudoff to the agency requested a $4,000 payment for services rendered in February 2005 and referred to an October 2002 contract between Prudoff and Alternatives.

The FBI also has served a subpoena on Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, a Cleveland law firm that has done more than $1.6 million in legal work for Lorain and the Community Development Department since 2001.

The law firm ultimately turned over numerous documents to federal agents, including numerous e-mails from and to Anthony Calabrese III, a partner with the firm. Many of those e-mails referenced Prudoff and other figures in the corruption probe.

Calabrese is widely believed to be “Attorney 1” discussed in court documents in the Sinagra case, and he was a lawyer for Alternatives as well.

FBI Agent Scott Wilson said Friday he couldn’t comment on the investigation.

Prudoff hasn’t talked to the FBI, Ricotta said, and he has told his client not to do so. But Ricotta also said the FBI hasn’t told him what Prudoff did to draw attention.

“They’re playing it very close to the vest,” he said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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