COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary board has recommended that former Judge Bridget McCafferty be suspended indefinitely from the practice of law for lying to the FBI, but would spare her from a worse fate of permanent disbarment.

In a scathing 20-page opinion, the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline characterized McCafferty as a political lackey to Jimmy Dimora and Frank Russo who cultivated their favor and toadied them with praise.

McCafferty, 47, of Westlake, spent a year in federal prison after being convicted in 2011 of lying repeatedly to the FBI. She has been a lawyer since 1991, and served as a Common Pleas Court judge from 1998 until September 2010, when she was arrested and suspended from the bench. She lost a bid for re-election two months later.

McCafferty declined to talk about her disciplinary case when approached by a reporter last week. Her lawyers did not return calls seeking comment.

The disciplinary board opinion quotes McCafferty in FBI wire-tapped recordings gushing over Russo and Dimora. Russo, the former Cuyahoga County auditor, is serving 22 years in prison for bribery and other corruption charges. Dimora, a former county commissioner, is serving a 28-year sentence for racketeering and 31 other corruption-related charges.

In the transcripts, McCafferty called Russo "the preeminent political person" in the county, assured him that "the voters love you" and "you do a great job," and offered the use of her courthouse chambers "for you to work on what you need."

The disciplinary board said the judge's kissing up to Russo and Dimora demonstrated how clouded her judgment had become, and how she abused the prestige of her office to advance her personal interests.

McCafferty had sought a much lighter two-year suspension, maintaining she had answered the FBI agents' questions "in a manner I believed truthful to the best of my ability." She called her convictions "aberrations in an otherwise law abiding life of public service."

But she did not file an objection to the disciplinary board's recommendation, which sends the case directly to the supreme court justices, who ultimately will decide the punishment for McCafferty. A final decision may not be returned for several months.

The disciplinary board cited McCafferty's denial as evidence she "has not yet fully accepted responsibility for her actions," and as cause for a more severe punishment.

"Even when she learned during her conversation with the agents that the FBI had been taping Russo's and Dimora's phone calls, and that it was targeting them for corruption charges, she still could not bring herself to acknowledge that they had attempted to intervene in .¥.¥. and exert their influence in" two of her cases, the board wrote.

McCafferty "stonewalled" the two FBI agents, repeatedly denying her improper and unethical ex parte contacts with Russo and Dimora, even after the agents gave her 10 opportunities to tell the truth, the board wrote in its opinion.

The judges on the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals — which rejected McCafferty's appeal of her conviction — also cited the egregious nature of McCafferty's crimes, which the disciplinary board quoted in its opinion.

"For a sitting judge to engage in this conduct shakes the very core of our system of justice, a system that's built upon the integrity and honesty of the individuals who are given the privilege to serve," the appeals judges wrote.

"This case is indeed extraordinary," the appeals judges continued. "For a sitting judge to knowingly lie to FBI agents after she had unethically steered negotiations in a case to benefit her associates is a shock to our system and the rule of law."

McCafferty spent most of her sentence at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., referred to by inmates as Camp Cupcake. She worked as a clerk in the camp’s plumbing shop and tutored some of her fellow inmates to help them obtain their high school equivalency degrees.

After she was released to a federal halfway house in Cleveland last year, she caused an accident on Interstate 90 and was ticketed. She pleaded no contest to a minor misdemeanor of driving too slowly on a highway, was fined $100 and paid $140 in court costs.