Cleveland, OH
How a convicted dump operator became a prolific informant in East Cleveland
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Less than a month after firefighters extinguished the blaze that burned for a week at the former ARCO Recycling Center in East Cleveland, investigators from three federal law enforcement agencies sat down with the man who ran the disposal site.
George Michael Riley confessed that he hadn’t paid taxes on the dump, or any of his businesses, in years. He also had multiple fraud convictions on his record. But that didn’t stop him from becoming a key informant in the push to end corruption in East Cleveland.