Journalist Arrested By Middleburg Heights, Oh. Police Via Set Up With Help From Her Own Attorney, Wayne L. Kerek
Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009
(National and Cleveland Ohio Area News)
Cleveland, Oh journalist Kathy Wray Coleman was arrested by Middleburg Heights, Oh. police last night in what she says is retaliation for an upcoming protest against Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who has harassed the journalist allegedly because of her writings in Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper, a weekly that targets the Black community, and investigations around a federal corruption probe involving Cuyahoga County public officials. Cuyahoga County is the largest in Ohio and includes the predominantly Black city of Cleveland. Middleburg Heights is an overwhelmingly White suburb of Cleveland that Blacks fear in terms of illegal arrests and racial intimidation.
According to Coleman, three police cars and numerous police swarmed her car at 9 pm last night without either probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion and approached her attorney, Wayne L. Kerek, as he was in the driver's seat of the car, seeking his license, which police said later was expired. But instead of arresting Kerek, who is White, police handcuffed and arrested Coleman and then ransacked her car before towing it. She was then taken to the police station where police took pictures of her but did not take fingerprints or put her in a jail cell.
“All of the policemen were White and they ransacked the car seeking my computer an investigative data,” said Coleman. “While at the police station they demanded information relative to a pending lawsuit of a malicious prosecution against Beachwood, Oh. businesswoman Myrna R. Gill, the city of Beachwood, Shaker Heights, Oh officials and others."
Two weeks ago the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed a dismissal of the suit by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty and reinstated claims of malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress filed by Coleman against Gill. That case arose after Coleman was found not guilty in 2005 of alleged telecommunications harassment by a Shaker Heights Municipal Court jury, a set up that she says was in retaliation for articles in the Call and Post on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Heights.
Coleman said also that police alleged that Keough had sanctioned her arrest there with a warrant relative to a resisting arrest verdict earlier this year in a bogus trial that she presided over that Coleman says is also retaliatory and was railroaded by the judge without any accusation or testimony from sole arresting White male sheriff deputy Gerald Pace. But when Coleman got on the phone to rally grassroots factions such as members of Black on Black Crime and the Carl Stokes Brigade, and activists like Art McKoy and Ada Averyart, she says police said that “Cleveland does not want you.”
A policeman named Sgt. Hoover, said Coleman, then demanded a written statement to no avail claiming she changed lanes in the car and would not give her name to police. She says that Hoover then said that he was charging her with the alleged traffic violation of continual lane changing and allegedly failing to give him her name while she was under arrest and exercising her right to remain silent, charges Coleman denies.
“He demanded a $200 bond and when I said I only had $125 dollars cash on me police said 'we will take that,” she said. “I then reminded police that any protests relative to Judge Keough and injustices against Blacks and others such as the one scheduled for November 10 at 4 pm on the steps of the Justice Center in Cleveland will still go forward regardless of the continual harassment of me.”
Coleman said that two of the policemen asked if she thought they were racist. Coleman responded by asking if they knew who could determine if Middleburg Heights were racist and the younger policeman replied that it would be "God. "In response Coleman said "no young man, it would be a court of competent jurisdiction."
In the end she received a traffic ticket accusing her of allegedly changing lanes continually, though it says that that is the only offense charged. The ticket also says that it is both waiverable and non-waiverable and that an accompanying criminal charge both exists and does not exists.
Kerek, said Coleman, went home unscathed and she was forced to call a friend to pick her up at the police station . Coleman said that Kerek, who does not own a car, had asked if he could drive himself home following a meeting earlier that day where he filed an appeal of a ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell that denied Coleman's second affidavit of prejudice against Keough. She then went to the nail salon while Kerek met with a client nearby. It was on the way back to Kerek's home in Strongsville, Oh where. police came in what Coleman calls an orchestrated manner that mirrored a segment of the now defunct television series dubbed “Hawaii Five-O.”
“They wanted what they thought they might find in the car as to the county corruption probe,” said Coleman. “The drama never stops when racism and malfeasance are involved and we are prepared to put it all on the table, including data relative to judicial impropriety and other malfeasance, in a trial by jury for everyone to see, if they pursue a racist criminal charge.”
“I need to also add," continued the journalist, "that Kerek and I had nothing but a professional relationship, though it appears that he is a scorned attorney in this matter and a ne're-do-well looking for brownie points from corrupt judges.”
Last week, in support of a community protest against Keough, Kerek attended a meeting of Black on Black Crime and told the group that most of the White judges in Cuyahoga County where allegedly unfair and that Black judges, like Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Charles Patton, are more fair than White ones. He also told the group that Black defendants are continually mistreated by the justice system in Cuyahoga County. He concluded his speech by telling the predominantly Black audience of Civil Rights advocates that Coleman is “ the smartest person he had ever met,” though Coleman has since called the accolades “another one of Kerek's slick agendas.”
Middleburg Heights has a history of harassing Blacks, the Cleveland NAACP has said relative to complaints that it illegally targets Black men for malicious prosecution, something Coleman says she will highlight at trial as to any malicious prosecution against her by city officials. She said that she had investigated a case for the Call and Post where a young Black male had allegedly been maliciously prosecuted there.
Last year Coleman was dragged to the county jail, allegedly harassed over her articles and investigations, given a knockout drug, held naked, supervised by a disgruntled male employee and released four days later without charges. On Thursday she voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit that Kerek had filed on her behalf around the bizarre episode that named among others as defendants former Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFaul and Retired Lorain Municipal Court Judge Gustalo Nunez, who often serves as a visiting judge in the Berea Municipal Court where criminal complaints brought by the city of Middleburg Heights are prosecuted.
In the dismissal filing Coleman said she needed to regroup and that according to Federal District Court Judge Christopher Boyko, who was presiding over the case, Kerek had taken action prejudicial to her by failing to properly file pleadings, which paved the way for a potential dismissal of certain defendants from the suit like McFaul. By dismissing the suit voluntarily without prejudice before Boyko could do it with prejudice relative to Defendants McFaul, Nunez and Lyndhurst Municipal Court Judge Mary Kaye Bozza, she preserved her right to refile it within a year, with the opportunity to name the same defendants. She also dismissed on Thursday a lawsuit alleging impropriety against Judge Keough that was before the Ohio Supreme Court because Kerek was holding off on registering to practice before that court though notified that the court would strike his filings unless he timely registered, placing the litigation at risk. That suit also, which does not seek monetary relief other than legal fees, can be refiled by Coleman within a year without prejudice.
“I may or may not refile the two suits with a new attorney,” said Coleman. “ We want to see how far they will go. This was never a money issue but one where equal opportunity and equal justice are at risk in Cuyahoga County.”
Coleman said that Kerek set up the arrest in Middleburg Heights last night in cooperation with Hoover and others and that he lured her there begging for a drive and ride and invited police to follow them.
“If ever an arrest smells of impropriety, this one does,” she said. “Had it been speeding under radar, running a red light or a DUI, it might have made sense “ But allegedly changing lanes repeatedly on a Friday evening on a busy two lane road with oncoming traffic is a silly charge and one that shows desperation as well as awareness that the action may have been recorded and put on camera. “
“Right before police swarmed in Kerek borrowed my cell phone claiming his was out of juice, though his phone began ringing thereafter.” “What he does not know is whether I carry multiple media apparatuses where I was not searched before being released from custody. And despite towing and ransacking my car, we shall see if their mechanics can locate for examination each and every tracking gadget potentially on the car. Pace did not testify before Judge Keough in the Cleveland malicious prosecution case, which is also the impetus for the harassment by Middleburg Heights. We shall also see if anybody in Middleburg Heights is up to committing perjury.”
Coleman also says that she was arrested because she is Black.
“How my White male attorney caught by police in the driver's seat with an expired licensed was not cited and went free and I got arrested on a bogus traffic citation is puzzling,” said Coleman. '”I knew then for sure that the fix was in though I will spend much of the upcoming week having to convince some naive Black people who feel inherently inferior to their White counterparts, due to intra-group-hostility, which is a by-product of racism, that I am not the culprit, but the victim.”
Coleman said that if criminal charges are filed she shall seek, via discovery, and via a request for a court order if necessary, Kerek's cell phone records from Revol Wireless and those of Middleburg Heights police, including Hoover, to determine what communications, if any, occurred between the alleged culprits, prior to the police set up.
Coleman says that she has been questioned as to why she hired a White attorney where she notes that prior to Kerek she had hired two Black male attorneys and one White female, all of whom worked against her for the establishment.
Posted Saturday, October 31, 2009
(National and Cleveland Ohio Area News)
Cleveland, Oh journalist Kathy Wray Coleman was arrested by Middleburg Heights, Oh. police last night in what she says is retaliation for an upcoming protest against Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, who has harassed the journalist allegedly because of her writings in Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper, a weekly that targets the Black community, and investigations around a federal corruption probe involving Cuyahoga County public officials. Cuyahoga County is the largest in Ohio and includes the predominantly Black city of Cleveland. Middleburg Heights is an overwhelmingly White suburb of Cleveland that Blacks fear in terms of illegal arrests and racial intimidation.
According to Coleman, three police cars and numerous police swarmed her car at 9 pm last night without either probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion and approached her attorney, Wayne L. Kerek, as he was in the driver's seat of the car, seeking his license, which police said later was expired. But instead of arresting Kerek, who is White, police handcuffed and arrested Coleman and then ransacked her car before towing it. She was then taken to the police station where police took pictures of her but did not take fingerprints or put her in a jail cell.
“All of the policemen were White and they ransacked the car seeking my computer an investigative data,” said Coleman. “While at the police station they demanded information relative to a pending lawsuit of a malicious prosecution against Beachwood, Oh. businesswoman Myrna R. Gill, the city of Beachwood, Shaker Heights, Oh officials and others."
Two weeks ago the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed a dismissal of the suit by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty and reinstated claims of malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress filed by Coleman against Gill. That case arose after Coleman was found not guilty in 2005 of alleged telecommunications harassment by a Shaker Heights Municipal Court jury, a set up that she says was in retaliation for articles in the Call and Post on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Heights.
Coleman said also that police alleged that Keough had sanctioned her arrest there with a warrant relative to a resisting arrest verdict earlier this year in a bogus trial that she presided over that Coleman says is also retaliatory and was railroaded by the judge without any accusation or testimony from sole arresting White male sheriff deputy Gerald Pace. But when Coleman got on the phone to rally grassroots factions such as members of Black on Black Crime and the Carl Stokes Brigade, and activists like Art McKoy and Ada Averyart, she says police said that “Cleveland does not want you.”
A policeman named Sgt. Hoover, said Coleman, then demanded a written statement to no avail claiming she changed lanes in the car and would not give her name to police. She says that Hoover then said that he was charging her with the alleged traffic violation of continual lane changing and allegedly failing to give him her name while she was under arrest and exercising her right to remain silent, charges Coleman denies.
“He demanded a $200 bond and when I said I only had $125 dollars cash on me police said 'we will take that,” she said. “I then reminded police that any protests relative to Judge Keough and injustices against Blacks and others such as the one scheduled for November 10 at 4 pm on the steps of the Justice Center in Cleveland will still go forward regardless of the continual harassment of me.”
Coleman said that two of the policemen asked if she thought they were racist. Coleman responded by asking if they knew who could determine if Middleburg Heights were racist and the younger policeman replied that it would be "God. "In response Coleman said "no young man, it would be a court of competent jurisdiction."
In the end she received a traffic ticket accusing her of allegedly changing lanes continually, though it says that that is the only offense charged. The ticket also says that it is both waiverable and non-waiverable and that an accompanying criminal charge both exists and does not exists.
Kerek, said Coleman, went home unscathed and she was forced to call a friend to pick her up at the police station . Coleman said that Kerek, who does not own a car, had asked if he could drive himself home following a meeting earlier that day where he filed an appeal of a ruling by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell that denied Coleman's second affidavit of prejudice against Keough. She then went to the nail salon while Kerek met with a client nearby. It was on the way back to Kerek's home in Strongsville, Oh where. police came in what Coleman calls an orchestrated manner that mirrored a segment of the now defunct television series dubbed “Hawaii Five-O.”
“They wanted what they thought they might find in the car as to the county corruption probe,” said Coleman. “The drama never stops when racism and malfeasance are involved and we are prepared to put it all on the table, including data relative to judicial impropriety and other malfeasance, in a trial by jury for everyone to see, if they pursue a racist criminal charge.”
“I need to also add," continued the journalist, "that Kerek and I had nothing but a professional relationship, though it appears that he is a scorned attorney in this matter and a ne're-do-well looking for brownie points from corrupt judges.”
Last week, in support of a community protest against Keough, Kerek attended a meeting of Black on Black Crime and told the group that most of the White judges in Cuyahoga County where allegedly unfair and that Black judges, like Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Charles Patton, are more fair than White ones. He also told the group that Black defendants are continually mistreated by the justice system in Cuyahoga County. He concluded his speech by telling the predominantly Black audience of Civil Rights advocates that Coleman is “ the smartest person he had ever met,” though Coleman has since called the accolades “another one of Kerek's slick agendas.”
Middleburg Heights has a history of harassing Blacks, the Cleveland NAACP has said relative to complaints that it illegally targets Black men for malicious prosecution, something Coleman says she will highlight at trial as to any malicious prosecution against her by city officials. She said that she had investigated a case for the Call and Post where a young Black male had allegedly been maliciously prosecuted there.
Last year Coleman was dragged to the county jail, allegedly harassed over her articles and investigations, given a knockout drug, held naked, supervised by a disgruntled male employee and released four days later without charges. On Thursday she voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit that Kerek had filed on her behalf around the bizarre episode that named among others as defendants former Cuyahoga County Sheriff Gerald McFaul and Retired Lorain Municipal Court Judge Gustalo Nunez, who often serves as a visiting judge in the Berea Municipal Court where criminal complaints brought by the city of Middleburg Heights are prosecuted.
In the dismissal filing Coleman said she needed to regroup and that according to Federal District Court Judge Christopher Boyko, who was presiding over the case, Kerek had taken action prejudicial to her by failing to properly file pleadings, which paved the way for a potential dismissal of certain defendants from the suit like McFaul. By dismissing the suit voluntarily without prejudice before Boyko could do it with prejudice relative to Defendants McFaul, Nunez and Lyndhurst Municipal Court Judge Mary Kaye Bozza, she preserved her right to refile it within a year, with the opportunity to name the same defendants. She also dismissed on Thursday a lawsuit alleging impropriety against Judge Keough that was before the Ohio Supreme Court because Kerek was holding off on registering to practice before that court though notified that the court would strike his filings unless he timely registered, placing the litigation at risk. That suit also, which does not seek monetary relief other than legal fees, can be refiled by Coleman within a year without prejudice.
“I may or may not refile the two suits with a new attorney,” said Coleman. “ We want to see how far they will go. This was never a money issue but one where equal opportunity and equal justice are at risk in Cuyahoga County.”
Coleman said that Kerek set up the arrest in Middleburg Heights last night in cooperation with Hoover and others and that he lured her there begging for a drive and ride and invited police to follow them.
“If ever an arrest smells of impropriety, this one does,” she said. “Had it been speeding under radar, running a red light or a DUI, it might have made sense “ But allegedly changing lanes repeatedly on a Friday evening on a busy two lane road with oncoming traffic is a silly charge and one that shows desperation as well as awareness that the action may have been recorded and put on camera. “
“Right before police swarmed in Kerek borrowed my cell phone claiming his was out of juice, though his phone began ringing thereafter.” “What he does not know is whether I carry multiple media apparatuses where I was not searched before being released from custody. And despite towing and ransacking my car, we shall see if their mechanics can locate for examination each and every tracking gadget potentially on the car. Pace did not testify before Judge Keough in the Cleveland malicious prosecution case, which is also the impetus for the harassment by Middleburg Heights. We shall also see if anybody in Middleburg Heights is up to committing perjury.”
Coleman also says that she was arrested because she is Black.
“How my White male attorney caught by police in the driver's seat with an expired licensed was not cited and went free and I got arrested on a bogus traffic citation is puzzling,” said Coleman. '”I knew then for sure that the fix was in though I will spend much of the upcoming week having to convince some naive Black people who feel inherently inferior to their White counterparts, due to intra-group-hostility, which is a by-product of racism, that I am not the culprit, but the victim.”
Coleman said that if criminal charges are filed she shall seek, via discovery, and via a request for a court order if necessary, Kerek's cell phone records from Revol Wireless and those of Middleburg Heights police, including Hoover, to determine what communications, if any, occurred between the alleged culprits, prior to the police set up.
Coleman says that she has been questioned as to why she hired a White attorney where she notes that prior to Kerek she had hired two Black male attorneys and one White female, all of whom worked against her for the establishment.
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