The following is an abridged version of an article currently running in the  Allegations of Official Misconduct section of News For Public Officials.

Cuyahoga County Recorder Patrick O'Malley has a problem with women. He says they ruined his life and destroyed his career. O'Malley's guilty plea last Thursday may end the arrogant Democrat official’s 20-year political career. But it won’t end public concern about the people we elect to protect our most sensitive information using the Internet to exploit us.

Patrick O'Malley

The investigation that led to O'Malleys plea to of importing and transporting obscene materials been ongoing since FBI agents seized personal computers from O’Malley’s home in 2004 after his ex-wife tipped federal authorities to possible crimes.

O'Malley's lawyer, Ian Friedman, said the images did not include child pornography but said O'Malley's computer contained images that jurors may have considered legally obscene.

"There is certain material that crosses the line," Friedman said."

Problems with women

In July 2004 O'Malley was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence against Vicki, his second wife.

In November, FBI agents raided O'Malley's Chagrin Falls home looking for evidence of a business deal that O'Malley helped broker and images of child pornography. Two personal computers belonging to O’Malley were confiscated. The incident might have gone unnoticed until Vicki made the warrant  public by placing information about the search in her Ohio Lottery personnel file and tipping the media.

O’Malley’s problems with women continued the following year when ex-girlfriend Marion Rivera called police in two suburbs, over a few days, complaining that O'Malley was verbally abusive to her.

O'Malley said he caught Rivera cheating and threw her out. He vowed to quit dating for a while. "Women have ruined my life and career," he said.

O'Malley's vow didn’t stop him from asking Cathy Luks to lunch at a popular political hangout in January 2008 shortly after she filed to run against him for Cuyahoga County recorder. Midway through their 75-minute meeting O’Malley offered Luks a $50,000-a-year job in his office if she dropped out of the race. Luks refused his offer but documented the conversation with a recorder hidden in her pocket and later provided the tape to local media.

"It doesn't matter who the Democratic machine comes up with [to replace O'Malley]. There can no longer be one-party rule if there is to be accountability," Ms. Luks said, in an interview with the Plain Dealer.

Problems with Workers

Last month The Plain Dealer exposed widespread problems with worker patronage in O'Malley's office. A review of his 2007 payroll showed he gave out nearly three dozen jobs, with a combined payroll of $1.4 million, to politically connected people and their family. 

Last month, The Plain Dealer reported at least a third of the employees on O'Malley's 2007 recorder payroll landed their jobs through political connections, including ward leaders and precinct committee members who helped him gain the recorder's job in 1997. The story also said, O'Malley employs nearly twice as many people as the Franklin County recorder.

Within hours of  O'Malley's resignation, County Auditor Frank Russo ordered an immediate inventory of computer equipment in O'Malley's former office. The reason: For at least four years O'Malley had barred county workers from conducting an annual state-mandated review of the equipment. 

Potential Flight Risk?

Court records and sources close to the story hint that O'Malley was making plans to leave the country.

If O’Malley leaves the country to avoid sentencing, he won't be the first county official to run from justice when faced with time in a federal prison.

Last February former Texas Hidalgo County District Clerk Omar Guerrero was captured by Mexican State Police in Reynosa, Mexico where he had been hiding for two and a half months after a warrant was issued charging the Republican clerk with sexual crimes. Guerrero allegedly had sex with a 15-Year-Old girl numerous times and the victim claims he threatened to use his political position to harm her and her family if she reported the assaults.

Five months after Guerrero's capture, Missouri State Police launched a statewide manhunt for former Butler County Clerk John Dunivan, 60, who disappeared after being accused of sexually abusing two children under 12 years of age. When the state police manhunt failed to produce Dunavan, A U.S. magistrate in St. Louis issued a warrant for "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.”

Dunivan is still on the run and was featured last month on Fox TV’s popular series America’s Most Wanted.

The public doesn't have a problem with women, web sites or county workers. Our problem is with elected officials who use their elected position and the Internet to exploit all of us.