Art McKoy Drug Case Dismissed After Prosecutor Mason Fails To Produce Alleged Confidential Informant
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason
Community Activist Art McKoy
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo threw out a bogus drug charge against longtime East Cleveland Community Activist Art McKoy after county prosecutors failed to produce an alleged confidential informant by noon today as she had ordered. In legal terms, the case was dismissed where not giving McKoy the opportunity to face his alleged accuser violated the confrontation cause under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
"It never should have been a case and it was a waste of taxpayers money," said Rufus Sims, one of McKoy's attorneys in the case. "It ruined his reputation in the community and his business."
Asked if McKoy intends to sue Sims said no, at least not now.
"We have no plans to sue at this moment," Sims said "Art just wants to get his life back and he may reopen his business."
Pursuant to a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment in 2009, the 66-year-old McKoy was charged with a fifth degree felony count of permitting the sale of drugs in his now defunct East Cleveland barbershop, which police raided and shut down in connection with the arrest. The cases of the two barbers indicted along with McKoy were resolved earlier this year. One was dismissed and the other was concluded with time served upon the arrest.
McKoy says he was framed by East Cleveland police.
"I believe that East Cleveland Detective Hicks framed me and that he is framing innocent people," said McKoy. "This ain't no time for a celebration because there is still work to be done to free other people."
Calls to the East Cleveland Police Department for comment were not returned.
Sims did not deny a set up of the popular community activist and founder of Black on Black Crime Inc, a grassroots organization that fights against Black on Black crime, police brutality, racism and other issues of pubic concern.
"I believe that people are out to get Art McKoy," said Sims, who stopped short of outright accusing Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason of a vendetta. "I can't say he [Mason]orchestrated it but somebody is after him."
Mason did not return phone calls seeking comment. He lost a state appeal earlier this year after a three-judge panel supported Russo's order for his office to provide the name of the alleged confidential informant via discovery and before any trial. And last month the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Mason had argued in appellate proceedings that the name of the alleged informant should have been withheld until after trial started because McKoy would have harmed him or her, a posture grassroots activists called ludicrous and preposterous.
Community Activist Art McKoy
By Kathy Wray Coleman, Editor of the DeterminerWeekly.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo threw out a bogus drug charge against longtime East Cleveland Community Activist Art McKoy after county prosecutors failed to produce an alleged confidential informant by noon today as she had ordered. In legal terms, the case was dismissed where not giving McKoy the opportunity to face his alleged accuser violated the confrontation cause under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
"It never should have been a case and it was a waste of taxpayers money," said Rufus Sims, one of McKoy's attorneys in the case. "It ruined his reputation in the community and his business."
Asked if McKoy intends to sue Sims said no, at least not now.
"We have no plans to sue at this moment," Sims said "Art just wants to get his life back and he may reopen his business."
Pursuant to a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment in 2009, the 66-year-old McKoy was charged with a fifth degree felony count of permitting the sale of drugs in his now defunct East Cleveland barbershop, which police raided and shut down in connection with the arrest. The cases of the two barbers indicted along with McKoy were resolved earlier this year. One was dismissed and the other was concluded with time served upon the arrest.
McKoy says he was framed by East Cleveland police.
"I believe that East Cleveland Detective Hicks framed me and that he is framing innocent people," said McKoy. "This ain't no time for a celebration because there is still work to be done to free other people."
Calls to the East Cleveland Police Department for comment were not returned.
Sims did not deny a set up of the popular community activist and founder of Black on Black Crime Inc, a grassroots organization that fights against Black on Black crime, police brutality, racism and other issues of pubic concern.
"I believe that people are out to get Art McKoy," said Sims, who stopped short of outright accusing Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason of a vendetta. "I can't say he [Mason]orchestrated it but somebody is after him."
Mason did not return phone calls seeking comment. He lost a state appeal earlier this year after a three-judge panel supported Russo's order for his office to provide the name of the alleged confidential informant via discovery and before any trial. And last month the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
Mason had argued in appellate proceedings that the name of the alleged informant should have been withheld until after trial started because McKoy would have harmed him or her, a posture grassroots activists called ludicrous and preposterous.
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