Judge Sued For Alleged Case Fixing Along With County Commissioner And Black Journalist Claims Foul Play
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Bridget McCafferty
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul
Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Saturday, October 17, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge has been sued for allegedly fixing a case at the alleged request of a county commissioner, and so has the commissioner himself. And in the thick of things a Cleveland area Black journalist says she is being harassed because of her investigations surrounding a county corruption probe.
Both the judge and the commissioner at issue are under investigation in a federal corruption probe along with a host of others and several others have already pleaded guilty to taking bribes with respect to county contracts and other corruption related charges. Neither has been charged relative to the county corruption probe and the commissioner at issue has publicly denied any wrongdoing.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Bridget McCafferty and Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, on leave as chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, are accused in the lawsuit of conspiring to minimize damages in a case that McCafferty presided over where a company known as Letter Perfect Inc sued D-A-S Construction over non-payment of $237,000 in subtracted construction work for the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Cleveland, Oh. is among several cities in Cuyahoga County.
McCafferty's telephone conversations were allegedly secretly taped by FBI agents as part of the corruption probe and she is said to have told Steve Pumper, a former top official of D-A-S who recently pleaded guilty to bribery, obstruction of official business and other charges, that she had helped as much as she could. That settlement to Letter Perfect Inc. was more than $175,000 and McCafferty allegedly said further in the recorded telephone conversations that she wished she could have reduced it by more, allegedly prompting Pumper to respond by saying he would see her at her next fund raiser. The civil case is assigned to Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul who himself is up on disciplinary charges before the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Cleveland area journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, who says she is a target of Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough for her investigative reporting on the corruption probe, says the investigation of certain judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas does not go far enough.
“The Black community and others would be surprised to know exactly how unfair the judicial process at all levels in Cuyahoga County is relative to civil and criminal proceedings,” said Coleman. “We request a comprehensive evaluation of each and every judicial official that has violated the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct, the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility or any state or federal law.”
Last year Coleman was dragged to the county jail, held naked in a jail cell supervised by a male employee, given a knockout drug and released four days later without charges. While there she says she was harassed over her investigations and her writings in the Call & Post Newspaper, a Cleveland weekly that targets the Black community. Two months later Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, a former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge, usurped the role of Cleveland Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez and brought misdemeanor charges against Coleman on behalf of the City of Cleveland as to the arrest itself. A jury exonerated Coleman of all charges but resisting arrest, a conviction that came without the testimony of the sole arresting white male deputy sheriff at trial and trial transcripts have no report of the deputy sheriff, named in court documents as Gerald Pace, even accusing Coleman of resisting arrest.
Coleman says that Keough railroaded the conviction with illegal hearsay testimony and illegal jury instructions and has harassed her every since, having her employees call her home and taking other actions. Coleman's trial attorney, Carole A. Lohr, was removed by the judge after trial and sentencing has yet to occur, though Keough has threatened Coleman with an arrest warrant and Coleman says she has received several threatening telephone calls from others on the matter. Her new attorney, Wayne L. Kerek, says he has never seen anything like it, particularly a conviction without an accuser of record and a judge in such hot pursuit of a Black journalist.
“It could possibly be motivated by insidious racial animus and the fact that my client writes on matters pertinent to the Black community,” said Kerek.
Grassroots organizations have planned a protest for 4 pm on Oct. 23 on the steps of the Justice Center in Cleveland to call for the dismissal of the resisting arrest verdict and the ceasing of Keough's alleged harassment of Coleman, now editor of the Determiner Weekly, an online magazine that addresses political and community issues from a Black perspective.
“We take issue with public officials targeting a Black journalist like Kathy for good faith reporting and investigations and not bothering White ones that work for the Plain Dealer and have reported on the county corruption probe,” said Ada Averyhart, membership chairman for The Carl Stokes Brigade, a Cleveland area grassroots organization. “Where are Black leaders and the Cleveland NAACP on this matter and are such leaders so entrenched in protecting those associated with the corruption probe that they are afraid to speak out?”
Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul
Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Saturday, October 17, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
A Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge has been sued for allegedly fixing a case at the alleged request of a county commissioner, and so has the commissioner himself. And in the thick of things a Cleveland area Black journalist says she is being harassed because of her investigations surrounding a county corruption probe.
Both the judge and the commissioner at issue are under investigation in a federal corruption probe along with a host of others and several others have already pleaded guilty to taking bribes with respect to county contracts and other corruption related charges. Neither has been charged relative to the county corruption probe and the commissioner at issue has publicly denied any wrongdoing.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Bridget McCafferty and Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, on leave as chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party, are accused in the lawsuit of conspiring to minimize damages in a case that McCafferty presided over where a company known as Letter Perfect Inc sued D-A-S Construction over non-payment of $237,000 in subtracted construction work for the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Cleveland, Oh. is among several cities in Cuyahoga County.
McCafferty's telephone conversations were allegedly secretly taped by FBI agents as part of the corruption probe and she is said to have told Steve Pumper, a former top official of D-A-S who recently pleaded guilty to bribery, obstruction of official business and other charges, that she had helped as much as she could. That settlement to Letter Perfect Inc. was more than $175,000 and McCafferty allegedly said further in the recorded telephone conversations that she wished she could have reduced it by more, allegedly prompting Pumper to respond by saying he would see her at her next fund raiser. The civil case is assigned to Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul who himself is up on disciplinary charges before the Ohio Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
Cleveland area journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, who says she is a target of Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough for her investigative reporting on the corruption probe, says the investigation of certain judges of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas does not go far enough.
“The Black community and others would be surprised to know exactly how unfair the judicial process at all levels in Cuyahoga County is relative to civil and criminal proceedings,” said Coleman. “We request a comprehensive evaluation of each and every judicial official that has violated the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct, the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility or any state or federal law.”
Last year Coleman was dragged to the county jail, held naked in a jail cell supervised by a male employee, given a knockout drug and released four days later without charges. While there she says she was harassed over her investigations and her writings in the Call & Post Newspaper, a Cleveland weekly that targets the Black community. Two months later Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, a former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge, usurped the role of Cleveland Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez and brought misdemeanor charges against Coleman on behalf of the City of Cleveland as to the arrest itself. A jury exonerated Coleman of all charges but resisting arrest, a conviction that came without the testimony of the sole arresting white male deputy sheriff at trial and trial transcripts have no report of the deputy sheriff, named in court documents as Gerald Pace, even accusing Coleman of resisting arrest.
Coleman says that Keough railroaded the conviction with illegal hearsay testimony and illegal jury instructions and has harassed her every since, having her employees call her home and taking other actions. Coleman's trial attorney, Carole A. Lohr, was removed by the judge after trial and sentencing has yet to occur, though Keough has threatened Coleman with an arrest warrant and Coleman says she has received several threatening telephone calls from others on the matter. Her new attorney, Wayne L. Kerek, says he has never seen anything like it, particularly a conviction without an accuser of record and a judge in such hot pursuit of a Black journalist.
“It could possibly be motivated by insidious racial animus and the fact that my client writes on matters pertinent to the Black community,” said Kerek.
Grassroots organizations have planned a protest for 4 pm on Oct. 23 on the steps of the Justice Center in Cleveland to call for the dismissal of the resisting arrest verdict and the ceasing of Keough's alleged harassment of Coleman, now editor of the Determiner Weekly, an online magazine that addresses political and community issues from a Black perspective.
“We take issue with public officials targeting a Black journalist like Kathy for good faith reporting and investigations and not bothering White ones that work for the Plain Dealer and have reported on the county corruption probe,” said Ada Averyhart, membership chairman for The Carl Stokes Brigade, a Cleveland area grassroots organization. “Where are Black leaders and the Cleveland NAACP on this matter and are such leaders so entrenched in protecting those associated with the corruption probe that they are afraid to speak out?”
Comments