CHARDON, Ohio — It seemed simple enough. More than two years ago, some Geauga County officials wanted to ditch an independent contractor handling the water department’s IT in favor of the county’s own IT system — a requirement under Ohio law.
Those years have been nothing short of tumultuous. They’ve been filled with elected and appointed officials shouting insults at each other in public meetings, a wastewater plant shutdown, a lawsuit filed by commissioners against other county officials and a Russian-based hack of the water department’s emails.
The longstanding fight escalated earlier this month when investigators for the Geauga County prosecutor, along with the FBI and U.S. Secret Service, simultaneously raided an employee’s office at the Department of Water Resources and the contractor’s business and home.
The raids came as little surprise to some, like Geauga County Auditor Chuck Walder, who led the charge to bring Water Resources’ technology under the Automated Data Processing Board, the county’s IT department.
“Honestly, it answered a lot of questions for me,” Walder said. “Why would you resist oversight that much? Why would you fight it? Because you don’t want someone looking over your shoulder.”
The criminal investigation centers around the contractor, Joe Camino of CSJ Technologies, and Water Resources IT administrator Mike Kurzinger. Investigators searched Camino’s home and business in Mentor at the same time as Kurzinger’s office in the county building on Ravenwood Drive.
Investigators are probing accusations that Camino gave money to Kurzinger, according to interviews. Geauga County Prosecutor James Flaiz confirmed some of the examination’s focus.
UPDATE: Geauga County employee charged in probe of water department contracts
Another aspect of the investigation includes a $16,000 contract in 2022 for Camino’s CSJ Technologies that was approved about three weeks after county IT officials told Camino his services were no longer needed. Nearly a year later, county officials paid Camino $3,000, according to documents and interviews.
No one in county government can explain the contracts, their timing, what they were for or what services were provided. Camino and Kurzinger did not respond to messages seeking comment. Camino’s attorney, Larry Zukerman, said Camino never paid Kurzinger and that his client did nothing wrong.
No charges have been filed, and Flaiz stressed that the investigation is in its early stages.
Fight splits county into factions
The raids underscored a longstanding and messy fight in Geauga County that has gone on for more than 20 years. More recently, it split county officials into two factions.
One side includes members of the Automated Data Processing Board, which, by law, oversees all IT-related purchases and operations in the county. Walder leads the board, which is made up of 10 elected officials, including Flaiz.
Water Resources officials, including the office’s director, Steve Oluic, and the county’s administrator, Gerry Morgan, make up the other side.
County commissioners also appear split. Jim Dvorak has sided in votes with Walder’s faction; the other two commissioners, Ralph Spidalieri and Tim Lennon, often sided with Morgan, including staving off disciplinary action against Morgan that Dvorak unsuccessfully attempted.
After years of clashing, the two sides agree only on a few things: that trust between them has been destroyed and that there’s little hope the relationships can be repaired. And those who pay the price are Geauga County’s residents.
Fight goes back decades
No one can pinpoint exactly how or why the fight started more than two decades ago. Some point to Water Resources being quasi-independent and wanting to stay that way. The department runs off the revenue it generates from delivering services to residents, and it requires less oversight from the commissioners.
Others, like Walder, said it could stem from Camino’s involvement in county business. Walder pointed out that the former Water Resources director, Morgan, is now the county administrator, and he worked with Camino for years in that position.
Morgan said he was Water Resources director at the time Camino gave Kurzinger a loan, but he said he never knew about it. And he rejected Walder’s argument about favoritism and said he’s operating like he would with any other department. He said Water Resources reduced Camino’s role over the years by hiring more IT employees to prepare for the eventual retirement of Kurzinger, the IT administrator for the department.
Oluic, the Water Resources director, and Morgan both said the Water Resources’ internal IT department backed by Camino is more responsive and gives the department better flexibility and security in the event of a catastrophe than the county’s automated data processing system.
Walder, who ran a software company for more than two decades before jumping into local politics, said the move is required by law. The county’s system is better equipped and staffed to handle emergencies and day-to-day operations, Walder said.
He said he started moving all county departments under the processing board’s control shortly after he was elected auditor in 2018 following a scandal in the auditor’s office. The former auditor, Frank Gliha, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges that said he negligently managed the office for years, as his IT chief embezzled some $1.8 million in public funds.
Walder said Gliha and other former auditors failed to keep the county’s system updated.
“We wanted to bring this county out of the Stone Age with ADP (the data processing system),” he said.
He quickly found pushback in Water Resources. In January 2021, Walder sent a formal letter to the department saying it was legally required to come under the county’s data processing system, and the process would soon begin.
‘Hostile takeover’
On Feb. 25, 2022, the county’s data processing officials said in emails that they were starting by migrating Water Resources’ emails. Kurzinger, the Water Resources’ IT administrator, emailed back that he was “blindsided” and asked for more information.
Camino, in a March 1 email, said he was “confused by the game plan,” that Kurzinger would be swamped with work, and there was nothing for the county to gain by the switch.
“I’m scratching my head at how anyone benefits from this considering it’s such a daunting task,” Camino’s email said.
Allen Keener, the county processing system’s chief technology officer, responded and said Camino’s assistance was no longer needed.
On March 29, 2022, Water Resources approved the $16,000 contract for CSJ Technologies.
A few months later, on July 14, 2022, the county’s data processing officials notified Water Resources that they had begun changing administrative passwords in the switch.
Morgan, the county administrator, sent an email shortly after, calling the password switch a “hostile takeover.” He wrote that the county’s system would be “responsible for any issues that occurred” at any wastewater or water plants, noting that no issues had occurred under the prior arrangement.
Two days later, the McFarland Wastewater Treatment plant in Bainbridge Township shut down.
McFarland plant shutdown
The incident sent public officials scrambling to find a fix while blaming each other.
The shutdown could have caused waste to spill into the nearby Chagrin River. It cost Water Resources about $30,000 in overtime and other costs to keep the plant running manually, while trying to fix the issue, said Oluic, the director of Water Resources.
Accusations flew. It was the county processing system’s fault for changing passwords and installing a firewall called CrowdStrike, Oluic and Morgan said.
Walder, the county auditor, shot back. He said that was impossible because CrowdStrike had been installed weeks before the shutdown, and passwords had been changed days before. Any issue would have caused a shutdown immediately, not days or weeks later.
He accused Oluic and Kurzinger of incompetence, allowing the department’s technology to become vulnerable by refusing to come under the county’s control. He hinted at sabotage.
The plant was down for three days.
Oluic said once CrowdStrike was removed, the plant’s technology restarted. Walder and the deputy data processing administrator, Frank Antenucci, said CrowdStrike was never removed.
Walder said the timing of the issue, coming two days after Morgan’s email about a plant shutdown, made him skeptical. He said he believes an “insider” caused the shutdown.
When officials tried to access a log that would have said exactly who or what accessed the plant before the shutdown, the log had been erased.
“I just don’t buy those kinds of coincidences,” Walder said.
Police called
The fight between the two factions over the plant shutdown took another turn.
Oluic on July 26, 2022, called Bainbridge Township police and requested a criminal investigation into Antenucci, the deputy administrator for the county data processing system.
Oluic reported an employee found a camera installed in a technology room in the plant that housed a server. He said he had never been told about the camera and worried about someone spying on the plant and his workers, according to the police report.
An officer called an investigator for the Geauga County prosecutor’s office who said the data processing system had installed the camera, and it was legal. Oluic, in an email, asked the officer to re-open the case.
Bainbridge Police Chief Jon Bokovitz called the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation to see if it would take over the investigation.
BCI agents said the county prosecutor would need to refer the case to them for an investigation. Bokovitz closed the probe without charges. He declined to comment on the situation.
The issues stemming from the plant shutdown and the report to Bainbridge police continue to plague the county. Both sides regularly fire off accusations at the other stemming from the issues at the plant.
And nearly a year later, no one has found out exactly what caused the plant to shut down.
Lawsuit
As the fight over the water plant raged, another issue emerged. County officials told Water Resources employees that their keycard access would be changed when they moved into the new county building on Ravenwood Drive in July 2022.
The county’s data processing officials said that they should control keycard access to the new building. Morgan and two county commissioners pushed back and said the commissioners controlled the access, under the maintenance department.
In September, two commissioners— Spidalieri and Lennon— hired attorney Stephen Funk, who filed a lawsuit against Walder, Flaiz and the Automated Data Processing Board. Dvorak said he wasn’t in favor of the lawsuit but was overruled. The lawsuit said the data processing board overstepped its legal authority and created “an unreasonable security risk.”
Flaiz, the county’s prosecutor, represented the board against the county commissioners, flipping his typical role. He said in court filings that the lawsuit was an “ambush” and argued the data processing board had the authority to control keycards.
The judge in the case granted Flaiz’s request to go to mediation. The commissioners ultimately dropped the suit on April 4. The county so far has paid about $40,000 to the outside attorneys, records show.
Hack leads to public shouting match
After the lawsuit was dismissed, the push to bring Water Resources under the data processing umbrella stumbled again.
On April 13, a Russian-based hacker attacked the Water Resources’ email system. The data processing system’s firewall, CrowdStrike, blocked the hack from advancing.
The hack happened on a Water Resources server that Camino set up and was responsible for maintaining. The server was built in 2012 and had a 2016 operating system that hadn’t been updated in months, partly because officials put a hold on doing anything with Water Resources while the lawsuit was pending.
Tempers exploded at an emergency data processing meeting the next day.
Flaiz, the county prosecutor, asked why Water Resources hadn’t moved to the county data board’s email system yet. Kurzinger blamed the lawsuit.
“I guarantee it wouldn’t have happened” if Water Resources were under the county’s data processing system, Walder said. “It’s a different server.”
Flaiz asked Kurzinger if any of the agency’s vendors had issues with ransomware. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room. Kurzinger spoke up: “Joe did.”
Camino said his business was hit by ransomware in December and ultimately paid the hackers. Flaiz asked him if his server was connected to Water Resources. Camino initially said no.
He later said his servers did have access to those of Water Resources but that they hadn’t connected for more than a year. Walder asked if Camino installed free updates on Water Resources servers. Camino said they weren’t in the budget.
Flaiz turned his ire on Morgan, and he blamed him for the ordeal. He asked if Morgan would allow Water Resources to finally come under the county data system’s umbrella. Morgan said he had already decided to move forward.
“Apparently you run the whole county,” Flaiz said. “Okay, so Gerry has now given his blessing after a horrible cyberattack on us during the migration.”
Morgan shot back: “You can stop trying to correct my testimony.”
Flaiz: “Gerry, you lie all the time.”
The feelings were still raw a month later. Oluic, when asked about the meeting, called Flaiz an “immature imbecile” and said everyone involved should be embarrassed.
Raids
At an Automated Data Processing Board meeting on May 3, federal agents and investigators for the Geauga County prosecutor’s office showed up with a search warrant signed by Chardon Municipal Judge Terri Stupica.
The search warrant said investigators are probing the crime of having an unlawful interest in a public contract, a fourth-degree felony.
They pulled Kurzinger from the meeting and interviewed him at a nearby county building.
Investigators took Kurzinger’s cellphones, computer, external hard drives, a dozen thumb drives, other electronic data storage devices and invoices from CSJ Technologies from the top drawer of a filing cabinet from Kurzinger’s office, according to the records.
Two other search warrants, for Camino’s home and business, are sealed, as are the affidavits detailing the probable cause for the search.
Oluic said after the raid he became aware of accusations that Camino had paid Kurzinger. He said he saw checks, worth $2,000 each from Camino to Kurzinger.
He said Kurzinger took the money as loans for down payments on a car lease. He said Kurzinger paid back Camino.
Oluic said the Camino and Kurzinger are friends outside of work. Camino has contracted with Water Resources for decades, and Kurzinger has worked there for more than 20 years.
“From what I understand Mike was having tough times,” Oluic said. “They’ve known each other for 30 years. That’s the problem with working in a county that’s so incestuous and inbred.
“What he did was wrong. He shouldn’t have taken a loan from a vendor. But is there anything illegal? That’s the thing I doubt.”
Flaiz, in a brief interview, said: “A loan versus a payment is a distinction without a difference.”
Camino had been paid some $328,000 for county work since 2014, according to county records, though the contracts are never worth more than $30,000, which don’t warrant competitive bids.
Camino’s contracts with the county in 2022 for $16,000 and 2023 for $3,000, however, have gone unexplained.
The purchase orders were both signed by Oluic. He said he was unsure exactly what the contracts were for, even though he signed them.
“I don’t know,” Oluic said. “I could have signed it. You know how many times I sign stuff every day? Lots. I guess the innuendo is we were trying to get something by, but if we wanted to do that, we could have gone straight to the commissioners. There’s no intent to deceive anyone.”
Dvorak and Spidalieri said they were unaware of the contracts. Lennon didn’t respond to requests for interviews for this story.
Walder, as the auditor, signed off on the money.
He said if the contracts had said they were for IT services, his office would have flagged them for approval by the data board. Instead, the paperwork that went to the auditor’s office said the contracts were for “computer services and repairs” and for “materials and supplies.”
“They gamed the system,” Walder said. “There was nothing to show for it.”
Morgan, the county administrator, said he took the issue with Kurzinger seriously, despite accusations that he’d been downplaying the raid privately.
“Even in this case where it was a loan, there’s the appearance of impropriety,” Morgan said. “From my perspective, from what little I know, I don’t know if anyone gained anything from it. But our county policy says you can’t take money from a vendor.”
Camino’s attorney, Zukerman, said his client was an integral part of county operations and is “upset his name has been brought into this.”
“He hopes to work with the county in the future but will respect the process,” Zukerman said.
Moving forward
It’s unclear what happens from here. The criminal investigation will move forward. The two sides now only communicate during public meetings or via email so there’s a record of what was said.
Spidalieri said he has never seen the “disconnect” in county government that exists now. He said everyone wants control.
“This isn’t what we’re supposed to be doing for the people of our county,” he said. “I think we’re doing a huge disservice to the county by all of the egos that are in place that aren’t working together. That’s been the bottom line. It’s never been like this. Now it’s the norm in all of these situations.”
Dvorak said he still wants answers.
“With the FBI and Secret Service’s help,” he said, “we’re hopefully going to find out more in the weeks and months to come.”
Adam Ferrise covers federal courts at cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. You can find his work here.