Cuyahoga County Judge Joe Russo and Clerk of Courts Nailah Byrd under fire for falsifying a criminal case docket to cover up the denial of the scheduling of a preliminary hearing that requires dismissal of the case with prejudice, the Black defendant accused of clipping an ankle bracelet put on her via bogus charges she assaulted by not touching four White KKK-type University Heights cops who came to her home three years ago without a warrant and allegedly slinging guns and rifles and calling her nigger....State law, specifically Ohio Revised Code 2945.73, requires dismissal of felony cases with prejudice if the defendant is denied the scheduling of a preliminary hearing while in custody for 10 consecutive days in county jail after an arrest without municipal level charges and no indictment has come down and the defendant has not waived such hearing or the time for such hearing has not been tolled....The Black woman says the Plain Dealer Newspaper defamed her over the ankle bracelet and that current case presiding judge Nancy Fuerst seeks to take the case to trial illegally rather than to dismiss the case..... The woman calls the activity "a high tech lynching that is ripe with public corruption and everything else, aside from whips and chains"....This is Part 5 of the multi-part series on Cuyahoga County public corruption....By Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
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| Pictured from left are Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst, County Clerk of Courts Nailah Byrd and Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo |
This is Part Five of a Multi-part Series on Cuyahoga County Public Corruption
CLICK HERE TO READ PART FOUR OF THE MULTI-PART SERIES ON CUYAHOGA COUNTY PUBLIC CORRUPTION
CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Joseph Russo, in collusion with County Clerk of Courts Nailah Byrd and other culprits, has falsified a case docket in an effort to prevent dismissal of a case in which a Black woman was indicted via a grand jury manipulated by since ousted county prosecutor Tim McGinty on felony escape and other charges for allegedly clipping an ankle bracelet, the woman denied the scheduling of a preliminary hearing within 10 consecutive days after her arrest and confinement in county jail.
According to state law, specifically Ohio Revised Code 2945.73, a defendant's felony case must be dismissed with prejudice if a preliminary hearing is not scheduled within 10 consecutive days in county jail after an arrest, and there were no municipal level charges and no indictment has come down. This is applicable unless a defendant waives his or her statutory right to such a hearing, or the time for such hearing has been tolled. A preliminary hearing that is timely scheduled shall not go forward if there is an indictment, state law says, and in this instance dismissal is not applicable.
Public records reveal that the Black woman at issue has been falsely charged with assaulting by not touching four White University Heights cops who came to her home without a warrant in May of 2015 slinging guns and rifles and allegedly calling her nigger. She posted bail on or about July 27, 2016 and was released in that case on July 29, 2016 with an ankle bracelet. This is though Judge Joe Russo's order for the ankle bracelet was not even journalized and docketed until August 1, 2016, Byrd and Joe Russo back dating the docket to July 27, 2016 to try to cover their tracks. (Editor's note: Public records reveal that Byrd, in cooperation with McGinty, actually elevated the assault charges from two to four cops without a court order or new grand jury indictment, activity requiring immediate dismissal of the assault case, a case the woman says is bogus too).
The woman, who says the speedy trial time has long passed, allegedly clipped the ankle bracelet on July 30, 2016 due to the absence of a court order as well as police harassment and a lack of understating of the law surrounding the issue
She is a Black Cleveland activist and local longtime journalist whose name is being withheld to protect her and her family members. And the case docket reveals she was held in the county jail and indicted on August 11, 2016, which is twelve days after her July 30, 2016 arrest and beyond the 10 day requirement of which she was to have had a preliminary hearing.
McGinty, whom the woman says has stalked her for years due to her activism against police murders of Black people, violence against women and county foreclosure fraud, and her writings, had her indicted anyway for spite. And Judge Joe Russo and Byrd falsified the case docket to make it appear as if she had been arrested in March of 2016.
This, data show, was to make it appear that she had been arrested in March of 2016 and the 10 day time period from her arrest on July 30, 2016 and the indictment on August 11, 2016 had come and gone.
Thereafter, some eight lawyers on the case, one a paid lawyer and the other seven appointed, refused to move to dismiss the ankle bracelet case, all of them quitting but the latest appointed lawyer, Brian McGraw, who ironically represents University Heights officials relative to his private law practice.
Current County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, who succeeded McGinty as prosecutor in 2017, is also harassing the woman, she said, and with a vengeance, and a goal to cover up public corruption and systemic racism in the common pleas court of Cuyahoga County.
Three judges presiding over the case, Joe Russo, followed by Judge Nancy Russo, who removed the ankle bracelet via court order and vacated court costs, as well as current case Judge Nancy Fuerst, tried to cover up the public corruption in the matter, data show, all three of them harassing the Black woman to no end.
Judge Joe Russo, public case records show, demanded an illegal and retaliatory mental competency exam that the woman subsequently passed, and Judge Nancy Russo tried to make her take another competency exam when she questioned a trial instead of dismissal and sought to represent herself due to ongoing malfeasance by Nancy Russo and her then attorney, public defender Scott Hurley.
A former administrative and presiding judge, Fuerst, 66, reversed Nancy Russo's order for a second mental exam by court order, after Russo quit the case following documented impropriety and a petition for a writ of prohibition filed against her by the woman with the Ohio Supreme Court. Fuerst said then that the woman was competent but got angry when the woman questioned her malfeasance in coming aboard as the third judge in the case and trying to cover up falsification by the clerk's office and Judge Joe Russo, and a host of other purported crimes relative to the sordid case.
A longtime Cleveland Heights-University Heights resident and John Carroll University affiliate, Judge Fuerst issued an illegal order on April 16, 2018 that if the woman asked Attorney McGraw, whom Fuerst appointed as indigent counsel in spite of a conflict as to his representation of University Heights officials, to file such a motion to dismiss or if she picketed him with community activists, she would be put in jail and a mental institution. And McGray sanctioned the illegal order by Fuerst, which also threatened the Black woman with jail and a mental institution if she even insulted McGraw, a privileged White man and apparently the judge's quasi employee, the woman said.
The Black woman, now proceeding pro se, or representing herself until she can secure new counsel, with McGraw now as stand by counsel over her objection and per Judge Fuerst, said the Plain Dealer Newspaper online at Cleveland .com even harassed her with a false and defamatory article relative to the ankle bracelet, an article written without contacting her for comment, and one with racial undertones, she said.
She said that Fuerst, like Judge Nancy Russo, Russo of whom is the second judge behind Joe Russo to quit the case, seeks to take the issue to trial rather than to dismiss the case and has harassed her and threatened her with jail at nearly every pretrial. And this is though the judge, at pretrials, and on record, has repeatedly said the woman is 'competent and qualified' to represent herself.
The victimized Black female defendant calls it harassment, public corruption, racism, free speech issues, and blatant sexism led by racist and angry White men in authority. And she says it is retaliation for foreclosure fraud and an attempt by JPMorgan Chase Bank, University Heights officials, corrupt judges such as Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, and others to steal her University Heights home as they have done as to thousands of county homeowners.
"It is racism, sexism, malfeasance by public officials, judges and White prosecutors, foreclosure fraud, free speech harassment, and a high tech lynching," the maliciously prosecuted Black woman said. "All they are missing are the slave whips and the chains."
All of the aforementioned, other than the Black woman they are targeting, and Byrd, the daughter of former Cleveland schools CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett, now in prison for steering multi- million dollar contracts as a CEO of Chicago schools, are White Democrats.
Cuyahoga County includes the city of Cleveland and is the second largest of 88 counties statewide.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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