Black Journalist Jailed By Cleveland Clinic For Call And Post Articles Joins Coalition Fighting The Closing Of The Trauma Center At Huron Hospital
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post Newspaper
General Counsel George Forbes
Former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Community Activist Art McKoy
Ward 6 Precinct Committeeman John Boyd
Journalist and Editor Kathy Wray Coleman
From the Metro Desk of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com
(www.determinerweekly.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
(The article below includes comments and/or statements as to Mayor Frank Jackson, Attorney George Forbes, Call and Post Publisher Don King, Editor Connie Harper, Retired Judge Sara Harper, U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, Attorney James Hardiman, Kathy Wray Coleman, the Rev. David Hunter, Councilman Kevin Conwell, County Council Persons Yvonne Conwell and Julian Rogers, East Cleveland Council Persons Barbara Thomas and Nathaniel Martin, Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, Robert Triozzi, Judge Ron Adrine, John Boyd, Beverly Charles and Community Activists Art McKoy, Genevieve Mitchell, Terrie Tolefree and Donna Brown)
A Cleveland area Black journalist who says she was jailed in 2008 at the direction of Cleveland Clinic officials for articles about the Clinic in the Call and Post Newspaper has joined the fight by U.S. Rep Marcia Fudge (D-11), local activists and Black politicians and clergy to keep the trauma center open at the Clinic's Huron Hospital in East Cleveland.
“I was dragged to the county jail from Metro-Health Hospital in 2008 where I was being treated for high blood pressure after being attacked at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center," said Kathy Wray Coleman, a freelance journalist of 16 years who now edits the Determiner Weekly. Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog. “And even though Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes and Attorney James Hardiman, a Cleveland NAACP branch attorney, were well aware of what was happening, neither would speak up and Hardiman actually came to the hospital to pretend like he was representing me and then the next morning I was dragged to the county jail.”
Coleman said that at the county jail, where she was held without bond, she was threatened over her investigation on the Cleveland Clinic, judicial malfeasance and other matters, as well as articles that she had written that were published in the Call and Post. In a particular article, said Coleman, Cleveland Ward 6 Precinct Committeeman John Boyd, pursuant to his unsuccessful bid for a seat on Cleveland City Council, was quoted as saying that Clinic officials were tearing up Ward 6 by stealing homes and businesses for an expansion project in violation of a city ordinance and that the Clinic had not given enough back to the Black community.
After being held in the county jail in 2008 for four days without charges, where she was held naked and given a knockout drug, Coleman said that Mayfield Hts police picked her up and White male county jail warden Kevin McDonough and his White male friends laughed and said she should be put in shackles as she was being put in the Mayfield Hts police cruiser. She said that while she was handcuffed and perspiring in the back of the police cruiser the two Mayfield Hts policemen stopped for lunch and called Clinic officials to ask how she should be handled, with one of the cops saying that he could not stand Don King, the nationally known boxing promoter who publishes the Call and Post, Ohio's Black press with distributions in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
Thereafter, says Coleman, she was taken to the Mayfield Hts jail and Forbes, who is also general counsel for the Call and Post, demanded thousands of dollars to represent her, though she says the newspaper to date owes her thousands of dollars for published articles that Forbes will not let them pay her for, including her one-on-one interview with now U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Since Mr. Forbes pushed for the articles against the Clinic, I was surprised that he would sanction the illegal jailing of me, apparently for money,” said Coleman. “I believe that he would sellout his mother for a silver dollar.”
While at Mayfield Hts jail Coleman said Clinic officials were sent there to harass her and that after the grassroots factions planned a protest to get her out and she contacted Call and Post Editor Connie Harper, Harper sent to get her, retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Sara Harper, her sister and a practicing attorney. Per Connie Harper, Coleman then did a five-part series published in the Call and Post titled “Jailed reporter tells her story," a widely read series that she says angered Clinic officials, Forbes and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. And after she would not be quiet on the Clinic harassment and the illegal arrest and jailing, and agree not to sue for the incident, she said that Jackson had her maliciously prosecuted in Cleveland for the Clinic and others through his appointed law director Robert Triozzi, a former Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
Then, says Coleman, then Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough was personally handed the case with the help of Presiding and Administrative Judge Ron Adrine, and allegedly in exchange for Jackson's endorsement for the judge relative to a seat on the Ohio Eight District Court of Appeals that she ultimately won in Nov. Forbes, says Coleman, endorsed her too while neither he nor Jackson would endorse any of the Blacks seeking judgeships in the Democratic primary last May, and all three of those Black women lost.
Coleman was exonerated of all charges accept resisting arrest in a two-day trial before Keough held in May of 2009. Coleman says Keough acted a fool at trial and urged a juror to lobby for the prosecution, doubled as prosecutor and judge, corrupted her paid trial lawyer, and gave illegal jury instructions to the jury. Jurors said after trial that they only issued a guilty verdict on resisting arrest because Keough made them do it via illegal jury instructions.
Coleman, who has not yet been sentenced, awaits dismissal of the resisting arrest charge since sole White male arresting sheriff’s deputy Gerald Pace did not accuse her of resisting arrest and did not testify in violation of her Sixth Amendment Right to confrontation. Jackson and Forbes are the problem, Coleman says, and more so Jackson, the journalist adds, allegedly because of his hatred of himself as a Black man, political corruption, and hostility towards strong Black women that will not cooperate with him .
At a meeting at Mt. Nebo Baptist Church in Cleveland yesterday Coleman told the audience members of some of the harassment. The gathering was to develop strategy in the fight to keep Clinic officials from moving the trauma center at Huron Hospital, where poor Blacks are treated from Cleveland and East Cleveland, to its Hillcrest Hospital in the middle and upper middle class suburban city of Mayfield Hts, which is predominantly White.
Speaking at the meeting, where television media were present, Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, a negotiator for the city on the matter who tried to convince those at the meeting that the Clinic was losing millions as to the trauma center at Huron Hospital, said that “I don't know what Kathy might say.”
Coleman did say something and advised the audience not to believe that the Clinic was losing millions and that, regardless, it is gaining millions in profit at its head hospital in Ward 6. She also advised that its is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to target trauma centers in poor Black communities to send them to affluent White ones when they receive federal funds and called for congressional legislation around the issue.
“During the Civil Rights Movement causes were connected to a push for a change in public policy and that is why we now have the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended,” said Coleman “The mayors of both Cleveland and East Cleveland pulled the lawsuits on this matter to hurt your fight to keep the trauma center open in East Cleveland that serves poor Black people in the communities of East Cleveland and Cleveland."
Among others speaking at the meeting, which was led by Community Activist Charles Bibb, were Bright Star Baptist Church pastor, the Rev. David Hunter, Cuyahoga County Council Members Julian Rogers (D-10) and Yvonne Conwell (D-7), East Cleveland City Council Persons Barbara Thomas and Nathaniel Martin, and Community Activists Art McKoy, Terri Tolefree, Genevieve Mitchell and Donna Brown, the community organizer around the trauma center issue.
Due allegedly to a prior commitment, Fudge, whose congressional district includes East Cleveland and parts of Cleveland, sent Beverly Charles to speak on her behalf.
"The congresswoman is behind you in fighting against the closing of the trauma center at Huron Hospital,” said Charles.
McKoy told the audience that Black preachers and those in negotiations with Clinic officials were selling out.
“Some of you take grant money and sellout and while we can kick the door down as activists to get you in to negotiate, you negotiate against the community,” McKoy said.
Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell
Cleveland NAACP President and Call and Post Newspaper
General Counsel George Forbes
Former Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough
Community Activist Art McKoyWard 6 Precinct Committeeman John Boyd
Journalist and Editor Kathy Wray ColemanFrom the Metro Desk of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com
(www.determinerweekly.com and www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
(The article below includes comments and/or statements as to Mayor Frank Jackson, Attorney George Forbes, Call and Post Publisher Don King, Editor Connie Harper, Retired Judge Sara Harper, U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, Attorney James Hardiman, Kathy Wray Coleman, the Rev. David Hunter, Councilman Kevin Conwell, County Council Persons Yvonne Conwell and Julian Rogers, East Cleveland Council Persons Barbara Thomas and Nathaniel Martin, Judge Kathleen Ann Keough, Robert Triozzi, Judge Ron Adrine, John Boyd, Beverly Charles and Community Activists Art McKoy, Genevieve Mitchell, Terrie Tolefree and Donna Brown)
A Cleveland area Black journalist who says she was jailed in 2008 at the direction of Cleveland Clinic officials for articles about the Clinic in the Call and Post Newspaper has joined the fight by U.S. Rep Marcia Fudge (D-11), local activists and Black politicians and clergy to keep the trauma center open at the Clinic's Huron Hospital in East Cleveland.
“I was dragged to the county jail from Metro-Health Hospital in 2008 where I was being treated for high blood pressure after being attacked at the Cuyahoga County Justice Center," said Kathy Wray Coleman, a freelance journalist of 16 years who now edits the Determiner Weekly. Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog. “And even though Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes and Attorney James Hardiman, a Cleveland NAACP branch attorney, were well aware of what was happening, neither would speak up and Hardiman actually came to the hospital to pretend like he was representing me and then the next morning I was dragged to the county jail.”
Coleman said that at the county jail, where she was held without bond, she was threatened over her investigation on the Cleveland Clinic, judicial malfeasance and other matters, as well as articles that she had written that were published in the Call and Post. In a particular article, said Coleman, Cleveland Ward 6 Precinct Committeeman John Boyd, pursuant to his unsuccessful bid for a seat on Cleveland City Council, was quoted as saying that Clinic officials were tearing up Ward 6 by stealing homes and businesses for an expansion project in violation of a city ordinance and that the Clinic had not given enough back to the Black community.
After being held in the county jail in 2008 for four days without charges, where she was held naked and given a knockout drug, Coleman said that Mayfield Hts police picked her up and White male county jail warden Kevin McDonough and his White male friends laughed and said she should be put in shackles as she was being put in the Mayfield Hts police cruiser. She said that while she was handcuffed and perspiring in the back of the police cruiser the two Mayfield Hts policemen stopped for lunch and called Clinic officials to ask how she should be handled, with one of the cops saying that he could not stand Don King, the nationally known boxing promoter who publishes the Call and Post, Ohio's Black press with distributions in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.
Thereafter, says Coleman, she was taken to the Mayfield Hts jail and Forbes, who is also general counsel for the Call and Post, demanded thousands of dollars to represent her, though she says the newspaper to date owes her thousands of dollars for published articles that Forbes will not let them pay her for, including her one-on-one interview with now U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Since Mr. Forbes pushed for the articles against the Clinic, I was surprised that he would sanction the illegal jailing of me, apparently for money,” said Coleman. “I believe that he would sellout his mother for a silver dollar.”
While at Mayfield Hts jail Coleman said Clinic officials were sent there to harass her and that after the grassroots factions planned a protest to get her out and she contacted Call and Post Editor Connie Harper, Harper sent to get her, retired Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals Judge Sara Harper, her sister and a practicing attorney. Per Connie Harper, Coleman then did a five-part series published in the Call and Post titled “Jailed reporter tells her story," a widely read series that she says angered Clinic officials, Forbes and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson. And after she would not be quiet on the Clinic harassment and the illegal arrest and jailing, and agree not to sue for the incident, she said that Jackson had her maliciously prosecuted in Cleveland for the Clinic and others through his appointed law director Robert Triozzi, a former Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
Then, says Coleman, then Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough was personally handed the case with the help of Presiding and Administrative Judge Ron Adrine, and allegedly in exchange for Jackson's endorsement for the judge relative to a seat on the Ohio Eight District Court of Appeals that she ultimately won in Nov. Forbes, says Coleman, endorsed her too while neither he nor Jackson would endorse any of the Blacks seeking judgeships in the Democratic primary last May, and all three of those Black women lost.
Coleman was exonerated of all charges accept resisting arrest in a two-day trial before Keough held in May of 2009. Coleman says Keough acted a fool at trial and urged a juror to lobby for the prosecution, doubled as prosecutor and judge, corrupted her paid trial lawyer, and gave illegal jury instructions to the jury. Jurors said after trial that they only issued a guilty verdict on resisting arrest because Keough made them do it via illegal jury instructions.
Coleman, who has not yet been sentenced, awaits dismissal of the resisting arrest charge since sole White male arresting sheriff’s deputy Gerald Pace did not accuse her of resisting arrest and did not testify in violation of her Sixth Amendment Right to confrontation. Jackson and Forbes are the problem, Coleman says, and more so Jackson, the journalist adds, allegedly because of his hatred of himself as a Black man, political corruption, and hostility towards strong Black women that will not cooperate with him .
At a meeting at Mt. Nebo Baptist Church in Cleveland yesterday Coleman told the audience members of some of the harassment. The gathering was to develop strategy in the fight to keep Clinic officials from moving the trauma center at Huron Hospital, where poor Blacks are treated from Cleveland and East Cleveland, to its Hillcrest Hospital in the middle and upper middle class suburban city of Mayfield Hts, which is predominantly White.
Speaking at the meeting, where television media were present, Cleveland Ward 9 Councilman Kevin Conwell, a negotiator for the city on the matter who tried to convince those at the meeting that the Clinic was losing millions as to the trauma center at Huron Hospital, said that “I don't know what Kathy might say.”
Coleman did say something and advised the audience not to believe that the Clinic was losing millions and that, regardless, it is gaining millions in profit at its head hospital in Ward 6. She also advised that its is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to target trauma centers in poor Black communities to send them to affluent White ones when they receive federal funds and called for congressional legislation around the issue.
“During the Civil Rights Movement causes were connected to a push for a change in public policy and that is why we now have the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended,” said Coleman “The mayors of both Cleveland and East Cleveland pulled the lawsuits on this matter to hurt your fight to keep the trauma center open in East Cleveland that serves poor Black people in the communities of East Cleveland and Cleveland."
Among others speaking at the meeting, which was led by Community Activist Charles Bibb, were Bright Star Baptist Church pastor, the Rev. David Hunter, Cuyahoga County Council Members Julian Rogers (D-10) and Yvonne Conwell (D-7), East Cleveland City Council Persons Barbara Thomas and Nathaniel Martin, and Community Activists Art McKoy, Terri Tolefree, Genevieve Mitchell and Donna Brown, the community organizer around the trauma center issue.
Due allegedly to a prior commitment, Fudge, whose congressional district includes East Cleveland and parts of Cleveland, sent Beverly Charles to speak on her behalf.
"The congresswoman is behind you in fighting against the closing of the trauma center at Huron Hospital,” said Charles.
McKoy told the audience that Black preachers and those in negotiations with Clinic officials were selling out.
“Some of you take grant money and sellout and while we can kick the door down as activists to get you in to negotiate, you negotiate against the community,” McKoy said.
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