Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
From the Metro Desk of The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com
(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com) and Cleveland Urban News.Com (www.clevelandurbannews.com)
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough has been accused of retaliating against African-American Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman after losing the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party's Endorsement two weeks ago for a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals. According to Coleman, that harassment includes a string of false and potentially defamatory case docket entries relative to the case before Keough as to the illegal resisting arrest verdict issued via a jury trial before the runaway judge last May.
Coleman says that the case docket falsely denotes that she was arrested and charged with aggravated disorderly conduct numerous times since the trial where she was exonerated by a jury of her peers of aggravated disorderly conduct, making false alarms and obstruction of official business, charges brought in 2008, after Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper published more than 38 articles written by the local journalist earlier that year. Each case docket entry says Coleman's bond is 10 percent of either $3 thousand or $5 thousand. Additionally, the judge says Coleman failed to attend some six hearings on her attorneys motion and amended motion to vacate the illegal warrant, though Coleman's attorney, Wayne Kerek, says she only scheduled one for Feb. 2, 2010 and that Coleman was not ordered to appear then or as to any of the unscheduled ones. And, at the hearing on Feb. 2 Kerek says she claimed she never scheduled it, though she put a capias alert and a warrant out against the Black journalist quickly thereafter.
According to the case docket, Coleman has some five warrants rather than just the one Keough issued last September after she did not appear to be sentenced and potentially jailed on the resisting arrest verdict, which Coleman says came following a string of illegalities by the judge and prosecutors, and in the absence of either an accusation or the testimony around the resisting arrest charge by sole White male arresting peace officer Gerald Pace. She goes as far, said Coleman, as to falsely docket that Kerek attended a hearing in Coleman's absence on December 29, 2009 on the motion to lift the illegal warrant when the attorney says he was at home sick and was not notified of one.
"I was in no way before her on that date anymore than Ms. Coleman was arrested for aggravated disorderly conduct since a jury exonerated her of the charge last May," he said. "Certainly she would know if she were arrested and clearly she has not been charged with it, and also of importance is the fact that she was not in a position to be disorderly because a person's presence is required to act in such an alleged fashion," he said. "I am convinced that Judge Keough is losing it."
Also interesting, some say, is that after Keough denied the request to vacate the warrant on Feb 2., and even though prosecutors opposed that motion that day, Keough has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 9 to hear only the prosecutor's opposition to the motion, which is illegal under the applicable rules of court.
"This is pure harassment, but more importantly for a judge to document that an innocent person not even charged or arrested has been arrested numerous times for aggravated disorderly conduct shows that there is apparently something wrong here, " said Coleman. "If she were Black like Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, the mainstream media would have been all over this."
Coleman says that she is currently in the process of filing a complaint with the bar association and that Keough is falsifying the docket to illegally try to circumvent the upcoming investigation.
"I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I believe that this woman is corrupt to the bone and a danger to the larger community in general, and the Black community in particular,"said Coleman. "And my research reveals that she will give a White man only a fine for a conviction like resisting arrest while some Blacks get probation which costs money and places them under this seemingly corrupt woman so that she can harass them for herself and others."
Kerek says that he believes that the hearing set for Feb. 9 is geared to give Keough a forum to illegally arrest him for standing up for his client since the hearing is to decide if she should deny his request to lift the warrant and she denied that request last week.
In a recent meeting with NAACP officials Kerek said that he believes that the judge is potentially unstable and should be removed from the bench.
Transcripts of proceedings reveal that at trial last May Keough doubled as judge and prosecutor, manipulated a juror into asking questions at trial that prosecutors negligently failed to ask of one of their witnesses, and allowed somebody to pose as arresting officer Pace and testify since Pace would not help her get Coleman convicted. After trial she removed Coleman's trial attorney, Carole A. Lohr, after Lohr, among other alleged unethical behavior, would not object to certain illegalities at trial. Those illegalities include her refusal to object, in spite of Coleman's repeated requests, when assistant city prosecutors Lorraine Coyne and Joan Bascone, both White, committed prosecutorial misconduct in telling the jury to convict Coleman for resisting arrest because she allegedly ran before being arrested when such action, which Coleman denied on the stand at trial, is not resisting arrest but failure to obey a peace officer's order, for which Coleman was not charged. Still, Keough is said to be supported by corrupt higher judicial officials allegedly because she is White and Coleman is Black, and she will not recuse herself from the case as allegedly required by the Ohio Lawyer's Professional Code of Responsibility and the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct. Nor will she hold a fair hearing as timely requested for dismissal of the racist and corrupt verdict.
Coleman added that because Keough issued rulings impacting her substantial rights while an affidavit of prejudice was pending against her, the Ohio Supreme Court, via a suspension of another judge who did the same thing in violation of state law, has said that she must recuse herself from the case. According to Coleman, former administrative and presiding judge of the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Nancy McDonnell protected her and kept her on the case by denying the affidavit of prejudice, as did Cuyahoga Judge Eileen A. Gallagher, who acted in McDonnell's place while she is out on sick leave, though only until her colleagues recently chose Cuyahoga Judge Nancy Fuerst to replace McDonnell as administrative and presiding judge. Coleman said that she may ask Fuerst to remove Keough from the case, per the filing of a third affidavit of prejudice against her.
"Birds of a feather flock together and when alleged corruption is the common characteristic that is the major motivating factor, the community is at risk," Coleman said. "I have studied Judge McDonnell and I believe her absence from the bench at this time is good for the community. I know little about Judge Fuerst, though we are researching and watching in hopes that she will be fair to the community in her new role as administrative and presiding judge."
The most egregious act, said Coleman, is that Keough is posing as a therapist without a license and illegally harassing Blacks with false diagnoses in alleged retaliation for free speech issues and other matters of public concern. Other Cleveland Municipal Court judges are allegedly doing similar things under the leadership of Keough, who volunteered to head the Cleveland Municipal Court Psychiatric Clinic in place of licensed personnel and via what some say is a conflict of interest as to her judgeship. The judge is also accused of using the clinic to experiment with Black people. Coleman says that the last time she can remember this type of alleged malfeasance occurring was years ago when Black men were inserted with syphilis for research. Keough, she claims, is taking Blacks back to the 60s.
Coleman said that Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has been apprised of the harassment from the start, as has Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, who is also general counsel for the Call and Post. She says she is awaiting a decision as to whether Forbes and the NAACP will intervene and that she spoke by telephone with him in 2008 after she was dragged to the county jail, held naked by a male supervisor, and threatened over Call and Post articles before being released without charges. Thereafter, Jackson orchestrated the malicious prosecution by the city of Cleveland with the help of Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, and Cuyahoga Judges John O'Donnell and Timothy McGinty, she contends.
Coleman says that Jackson, angry over her writings relative to his arbitrary decision to close 18 of Cleveland schools in June, is said to be behind some of the recent activity, including the falsification by Cleveland Clerk of Court Earl B. Turner in documenting that prosecutors opposed the motion to lift the bench warrant after Keough denied it on Feb 2. when they opposed it prior to the decision. The falsification would serve to give Keough an illegal venue to hold another hearing to again deny the motion to lift the warrant that she denied on Feb 2., though the Ohio Rules of Civil and Criminal Procedure do not allow judges to hold hearings on an opposition motion as opposed to the motion itself.
"The mayor wants to be able to do in Cleveland schools children, principals and other administrators without any hoopla and he realizes we cannot be bought," said Coleman, who says the mayor lobbied the Call and Post, a weekly that targets the Black community, to be silent on his harassment of her.
Coleman also alleges that she has been threatened for speaking at a school closing meeting relative to A.G Bell on Thursday and for doing an article that reveals that the school is second in academics of the 80 district K-8 Schools and that because Jackson needs to fill up the newly renovated Wilson school clear across town he and schools CEO Dr. Eugene Sanders have tried to use artificial data to close the Black school.
"A recall of the mayor is clearly what the city needs where the city and schools are more than $75 million in debt under his leadership, 11 Black women are dead relative to the Imperial Avenue Murders and six did not have to die, and this man will not diversify top level law enforcement jobs such as chief of police, safety director, law director and chief prosecutor where Blacks and women need not apply," said Coleman. "Though he may fool some Black leaders and the Call and Post, he does not fool me."
Coleman said that a councilman told her that he is tired of only White men coming to the table relative to issues around safety and law enforcement and that if a Black law director had lost as many cases for the city as Triozzi has, he would have be fired long ago.
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Posted By Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman to THE KATHY WRAY COLEMAN ONLINE NEWS BLOG AND MEDIA NETWORK at 2/06/2010 08:53:00 AM
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