Judge Keough Refuses To Lift Illegal Warrant Against Investigative Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman Who Awaits Intervention By Cleveland NAACP
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson 
Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative And Presiding Judge Ronald Adrine
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Administrative And Presiding Judge Nancy Fuerst
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Ohio Eighth District Court Of Appeals Judge Larry Jones
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post General Counsel George Forbes
Investigative Journalist And Editor Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Tuesday, February 2, 2010
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
From the Metro Desk of The Determiner Weekly.Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
At a hearing on Monday that she scheduled to consider lifting an illegal and retaliatory warrant against African-American Investigative Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough allegedly attacked Coleman's attorney from a verbal standpoint for attending the hearing and representing his client within the bounds of the law.
“Where is Ms. Coleman,” griped Keough to her attorney Wayne L. Kerek, who said he replied that “she believes she was wrongly convicted and she is frightened of you.”
Kerek said the judge then went into a rage screaming and saying his motion to lift the bench warrant was frivolous, though she scheduled a hearing on the merits of it and judges do not schedule hearings on the merits of a frivolous motion. When Kerek reminded her of that she allegedly screamed that a scheduler did it, though Kerek says that she in fact scheduled it and her bailiff called him before the hearing to discuss it.
Unlike most judges Keough uses her bailiff to allegedly threaten Black defendants and to get around the ex parte rule that makes it unethical under the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct for a judge to communicate with a single party or that party's attorney in the absence of the other side on substantive matters. Coleman was not ordered to the hearing and the warrant at issue was put out by Keough last year, after she demanded that Coleman appear to be possibly jailed on an illegal jury verdict of resisting arrest issued at the end of a two day trial before the judge that was held last May.
“When I walked away at the close of Monday's hearing and after she refused to lift the warrant she screamed “come back here” and then said that “there will be consequences for your actions,” Kerek said.
Also, the veteran attorney of 26 years said Keough harassed him for filing a motion to lift the warrant that he brought on various grounds including prosecutorial misconduct by Cleveland assistant city prosecutors Lorraine Coyne and Joan Bascone, both White, and one of whom lied to the jury at trial last May saying allegedly running before an arrest, which Coleman denied doing at trial, is resisting arrest when it is actually failure to obey a peace officer's order, for which Coleman was not charged. At trial in the matter Coleman took the stand and denied all of the charges against her, though she exposed a wealth of alleged judicial corruption from the Ohio Supreme Court level all the way down to the municipal courts in Cleveland, Shaker Heights and Lyndhurst, Oh. That testimony, she claims, which was taken by a stenographer and via a video apparatus, is a reason for Keough's ongoing harassment of her.
Kerek said that Keough acts as though any criticism of the prosecution is a criticism of her, which might explain why at trial she jumped up and began prosecuting the case for the City of Cleveland, the entity that in 2008 brought the charge of resisting arrest along with bogus charges of making false alarms, aggravated disorderly conduct and obstruction of official business against the journalist. According to Coleman, this was after Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper published some 38 articles that year that she had written on county reform, alleged racism, the reduction in Cleveland City Council and other matters.
Coleman says the articles angered Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, a mulatto who refuses to embrace diversity and appoint either a Black or a woman in one of the top law enforcement jobs of chief of police, law director, safety director, chief prosecutor or EMS commissioner, though the major metropolitan City of Cleveland is 57 percent Black and majority female. In turn, she says that Jackson had his political appointee, Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, also a former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge, usurp the role of city prosecutor Victor Perez to bring the charges against her on behalf of the city. But in spite of what Coleman says were efforts by Keough and Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judges Timothy McGinty and John O'Donnell to seal convictions across the board she was exonerated of all but resisting arrest, an outcome that she says Keough got upset about since she served as both prosecutor and judge during trial proceedings.
O'Donnell's harassment of her was to help Chase Manhattan Mortgage Company relative to civil litigation involving the journalist that was before him Coleman contends, and McGinty, she says, was lobbying for the city of Shaker Heights, Oh. regarding still pending lawsuit before him. That lawsuit was filed by Coleman after a Shaker Heights jury in 2005 exonerated her of a criminal charge for what the journalist says was in retaliation for articles on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Heights that were published in the Call and Post.
In addition to a dual role as judge and prosecutor during the trial before her last May the transcript of proceedings reveals that Judge Keough manipulated a juror into asking unwritten questions in the middle of trial that prosecutors negligently failed to ask of a witness, permitted hearsay testimony in violation of the Ohio Rules of Evidence for the sole arresting officer who did not accuse Coleman of resisting arrest or testify at trial, and met in closed door sessions with Coleman's then and paid attorney, Carol A. Lohr, who came out lobbying for the prosecution and would not object to illegalities that brought the jury verdict of resisting arrest. After removing Lohr as Coleman's attorney following her impropriety at trial, Coleman says the judge has refused Kerek's request to hold a hearing for dismissal of the verdict though Coleman timely sought an extension to secure paid counsel to replace Lohr and because Cleveland Municipal Court Reporter Laura Williams had not completed the transcript of trial proceedings.
Coleman says that Keough's alleged harassment is ongoing and dangerous and that she is harassing Black defendants by illegally diagnosing them without a therapist license in a her role in overseeing the Cleveland Municipal Court Psychiatric Clinic.
“Just last week she allegedly sent a man on my property who banged on the door and blew his horn for at least a half an hour,” said Coleman. “Though my husband is deceased I hope they understand that if anybody comes in my home illegally they do so at their own risk where I was jailed in the county in 2008, held naked via a potentially sadistic male supervisor, and harassed over Call and Post articles and other matters before being released without charges. And, due to the fear behind that and my constitutional and statutory right to live free from harassment and unnecessary intrusion I will not tolerate any further harassment from a seemingly corrupt judge whose mental health came under question by those attending a meeting last week with top Cleveland NAACP officials around this sordid affair.”
Coleman said that she is awaiting a decision from Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, who is also general counsel for the Call and Post, and the group's executive board, as to whether the Civil Rights organization will intervene. At the meeting last week with NAACP officials Kerek said that in his entire career he has never seen a judge act like Keough, whom he said he believes is potentially unstable with a clear personal vendetta against the Black journalist and community activist. The attorney has asked the NAACP to send a letter to Keough and Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative and Presiding Judge Ron Adrian asking that Keough lift the warrant and recuse herself from the case, particularly where the Ohio Supreme Court suspended a judge for doing what Keough did when she issued rulings impacting Coleman 's substantial rights in violation of state law and while an affidavit of prejudice was pending before then Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy McDonnell. Coleman says she is in the process of preparing a complaint to file with the bar association against Judge Keough.
McDonnell, said Coleman, who is out on sick leave following double lung transplant surgery at Cleveland Clinic Hospital and was replaced as administrative and presiding judge with Cuyahoga Judge Nancy Fuerst, protected Judge Keough and sanctioned her illegal behavior rather than simply removing her from the case. Regarding Judge Adrian, Coleman says she questions how Blacks can be treated in such a manner by Keough under his leadership, particularly since he is a Black man.
“First it was Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative and Presiding Judge Larry Jones, who is also Black, that protected Judge Keough and since he was elected to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals in 2008 it appears that Judge Adrine is allowing the activity by not speaking out,” Coleman said. “How these Black men can sit back and let this potentially unbalanced woman wreak havoc on the Black community is puzzling to me where Judge Jones was quick to want to criticize Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, who is also Black, via a scathing article published against Judge Stokes last year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's Largest Newspaper.”
Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative And Presiding Judge Ronald Adrine
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Administrative And Presiding Judge Nancy Fuerst
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes
Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Ohio Eighth District Court Of Appeals Judge Larry Jones
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post General Counsel George Forbes
Investigative Journalist And Editor Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Tuesday, February 2, 2010
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)
From the Metro Desk of The Determiner Weekly.Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
At a hearing on Monday that she scheduled to consider lifting an illegal and retaliatory warrant against African-American Investigative Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough allegedly attacked Coleman's attorney from a verbal standpoint for attending the hearing and representing his client within the bounds of the law.
“Where is Ms. Coleman,” griped Keough to her attorney Wayne L. Kerek, who said he replied that “she believes she was wrongly convicted and she is frightened of you.”
Kerek said the judge then went into a rage screaming and saying his motion to lift the bench warrant was frivolous, though she scheduled a hearing on the merits of it and judges do not schedule hearings on the merits of a frivolous motion. When Kerek reminded her of that she allegedly screamed that a scheduler did it, though Kerek says that she in fact scheduled it and her bailiff called him before the hearing to discuss it.
Unlike most judges Keough uses her bailiff to allegedly threaten Black defendants and to get around the ex parte rule that makes it unethical under the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct for a judge to communicate with a single party or that party's attorney in the absence of the other side on substantive matters. Coleman was not ordered to the hearing and the warrant at issue was put out by Keough last year, after she demanded that Coleman appear to be possibly jailed on an illegal jury verdict of resisting arrest issued at the end of a two day trial before the judge that was held last May.
“When I walked away at the close of Monday's hearing and after she refused to lift the warrant she screamed “come back here” and then said that “there will be consequences for your actions,” Kerek said.
Also, the veteran attorney of 26 years said Keough harassed him for filing a motion to lift the warrant that he brought on various grounds including prosecutorial misconduct by Cleveland assistant city prosecutors Lorraine Coyne and Joan Bascone, both White, and one of whom lied to the jury at trial last May saying allegedly running before an arrest, which Coleman denied doing at trial, is resisting arrest when it is actually failure to obey a peace officer's order, for which Coleman was not charged. At trial in the matter Coleman took the stand and denied all of the charges against her, though she exposed a wealth of alleged judicial corruption from the Ohio Supreme Court level all the way down to the municipal courts in Cleveland, Shaker Heights and Lyndhurst, Oh. That testimony, she claims, which was taken by a stenographer and via a video apparatus, is a reason for Keough's ongoing harassment of her.
Kerek said that Keough acts as though any criticism of the prosecution is a criticism of her, which might explain why at trial she jumped up and began prosecuting the case for the City of Cleveland, the entity that in 2008 brought the charge of resisting arrest along with bogus charges of making false alarms, aggravated disorderly conduct and obstruction of official business against the journalist. According to Coleman, this was after Cleveland's Call and Post Newspaper published some 38 articles that year that she had written on county reform, alleged racism, the reduction in Cleveland City Council and other matters.
Coleman says the articles angered Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, a mulatto who refuses to embrace diversity and appoint either a Black or a woman in one of the top law enforcement jobs of chief of police, law director, safety director, chief prosecutor or EMS commissioner, though the major metropolitan City of Cleveland is 57 percent Black and majority female. In turn, she says that Jackson had his political appointee, Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, also a former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge, usurp the role of city prosecutor Victor Perez to bring the charges against her on behalf of the city. But in spite of what Coleman says were efforts by Keough and Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judges Timothy McGinty and John O'Donnell to seal convictions across the board she was exonerated of all but resisting arrest, an outcome that she says Keough got upset about since she served as both prosecutor and judge during trial proceedings.
O'Donnell's harassment of her was to help Chase Manhattan Mortgage Company relative to civil litigation involving the journalist that was before him Coleman contends, and McGinty, she says, was lobbying for the city of Shaker Heights, Oh. regarding still pending lawsuit before him. That lawsuit was filed by Coleman after a Shaker Heights jury in 2005 exonerated her of a criminal charge for what the journalist says was in retaliation for articles on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Heights that were published in the Call and Post.
In addition to a dual role as judge and prosecutor during the trial before her last May the transcript of proceedings reveals that Judge Keough manipulated a juror into asking unwritten questions in the middle of trial that prosecutors negligently failed to ask of a witness, permitted hearsay testimony in violation of the Ohio Rules of Evidence for the sole arresting officer who did not accuse Coleman of resisting arrest or testify at trial, and met in closed door sessions with Coleman's then and paid attorney, Carol A. Lohr, who came out lobbying for the prosecution and would not object to illegalities that brought the jury verdict of resisting arrest. After removing Lohr as Coleman's attorney following her impropriety at trial, Coleman says the judge has refused Kerek's request to hold a hearing for dismissal of the verdict though Coleman timely sought an extension to secure paid counsel to replace Lohr and because Cleveland Municipal Court Reporter Laura Williams had not completed the transcript of trial proceedings.
Coleman says that Keough's alleged harassment is ongoing and dangerous and that she is harassing Black defendants by illegally diagnosing them without a therapist license in a her role in overseeing the Cleveland Municipal Court Psychiatric Clinic.
“Just last week she allegedly sent a man on my property who banged on the door and blew his horn for at least a half an hour,” said Coleman. “Though my husband is deceased I hope they understand that if anybody comes in my home illegally they do so at their own risk where I was jailed in the county in 2008, held naked via a potentially sadistic male supervisor, and harassed over Call and Post articles and other matters before being released without charges. And, due to the fear behind that and my constitutional and statutory right to live free from harassment and unnecessary intrusion I will not tolerate any further harassment from a seemingly corrupt judge whose mental health came under question by those attending a meeting last week with top Cleveland NAACP officials around this sordid affair.”
Coleman said that she is awaiting a decision from Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes, who is also general counsel for the Call and Post, and the group's executive board, as to whether the Civil Rights organization will intervene. At the meeting last week with NAACP officials Kerek said that in his entire career he has never seen a judge act like Keough, whom he said he believes is potentially unstable with a clear personal vendetta against the Black journalist and community activist. The attorney has asked the NAACP to send a letter to Keough and Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative and Presiding Judge Ron Adrian asking that Keough lift the warrant and recuse herself from the case, particularly where the Ohio Supreme Court suspended a judge for doing what Keough did when she issued rulings impacting Coleman 's substantial rights in violation of state law and while an affidavit of prejudice was pending before then Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Administrative and Presiding Judge Nancy McDonnell. Coleman says she is in the process of preparing a complaint to file with the bar association against Judge Keough.
McDonnell, said Coleman, who is out on sick leave following double lung transplant surgery at Cleveland Clinic Hospital and was replaced as administrative and presiding judge with Cuyahoga Judge Nancy Fuerst, protected Judge Keough and sanctioned her illegal behavior rather than simply removing her from the case. Regarding Judge Adrian, Coleman says she questions how Blacks can be treated in such a manner by Keough under his leadership, particularly since he is a Black man.
“First it was Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative and Presiding Judge Larry Jones, who is also Black, that protected Judge Keough and since he was elected to the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals in 2008 it appears that Judge Adrine is allowing the activity by not speaking out,” Coleman said. “How these Black men can sit back and let this potentially unbalanced woman wreak havoc on the Black community is puzzling to me where Judge Jones was quick to want to criticize Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Angela Stokes, who is also Black, via a scathing article published against Judge Stokes last year by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's Largest Newspaper.”
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