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.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor
CLEVELAND, Ohio -Former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Lance Mason, also a former Ohio senator, has stabbed his ex- wife to death following a domestic dispute at the Mason home in Shaker Heights, the disgraced former judge now a Cleveland city administrator after serving nine months of a two- years prison sentence following convictions on felony assault and domestic violence in 2015.
Aisha Fraser, 45, who was Black, was a sixth grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights and their two daughters are Shaker Heights schools students.
She took back her maiden name after divorcing the abusive Mason
Sources said Mason stabbed his ex-wife to death with a lawn tool and with no regard for her life whatsoever.
As a convicted felon, the woman-beater could not legally possess a gun
After the stabbing death of his ex-wife, a Shaker Heights police officer was reportedly injured by Mason with his car while responding to the domestic dispute and is in a local hospital recovering, police said.
Lance Mason reportedly ran to another home after injuring the officer with his car, and that is where he was arrested, police said.
Authorities said the former judge has been charged with felonious assault as to his attack on the police officer, while charges relative to the murder of his ex-wife are forthcoming.
Mason is currently in police custody and is being guarded by the same Shaker Heights cops accused of routinely ignoring his wife's cries for help, sources say.
Police said the tragic incident occurred at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday on the 17000 block of Chagrin Boulevard near Normandy Road at the Mason home.
Neighbors were well aware of the domestic violence in the Mason home because it was the talk of the community, sources say.
Before he was ousted from the common pleas bench and stripped of his law licence over the felony assault conviction, Mason was the only Black male judge of 34 judges on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas general division bench.
Mason, 51, was arrested on Aug. 3, 2014 in Shaker Heights following a physical altercation at Van Aken Boulevard near Glencairn Road in the car he was driving, and with his then wife and kids as passengers.
Court documents state that Mason hit his then wife Aisha in the face with his fist, bit her, and allegedly slammed her head against the dashboard of the car.
A 9-1-1 tape reveals that Aisha, who was transported to the hospital and later released, told the dispatcher that Mason beat her, threw her from the car, and then drove off with their two young children.
He was originally charged in Shaker Heights regarding the 2015 assault where he passed a mental competency exam ordered by longtime Shaker Heights Judge K.J. Montgomery, a Democrat.
He was later indicted in that case on criminal charges by a Cuyahoga County grand jury.
The former judge pleaded guilty to one count of domestic violence and one count of felonious assault on Aug 13, 2015, but remained angry and hostile over the incident that he blames on everybody but himself, sources said.
The other charges were dropped, including two counts of kidnapping, two counts of felonious assault, and two counts of endangering children, by then county county prosecutor Tim McGinty, a former common pleas judge himself who served on the bench with Mason, a judge since 2008.
Fraser filed for divorce on Aug. 4, 2014, a day after the 2014 incident at issue.
Her divorce petition cites, among other claims, extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.
Shaker Heights is a prominent Cleveland suburb and Cleveland is among some 59 municipalities, villages or townships of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties statewide that is roughly 29 percent Black, and a Democratic stronghold.
A Shaker Heights Democrat before his assault case, and a former state senator, Mason faced between nine and 36 months in prison when was sentenced before visiting judge Patricia Cosgrove. She was assigned to hear the case by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor after none of his fellow common pleas judges, two of them Black women, would not hear the case.
He was a protege of former congresswomen Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died in office in 2008, and Black Democrats, including Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who succeeded Tubbs Jones, and they and other Black Democrats, and others, covered for his mistakes.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, also a Democrat and a Black mayor in his fourth term in office, hired him in 2017 as an administrator for minority businesses at City Hall.
He was reportedly among 13 applicants for the job, his selection in the midst of a felony conviction of violence of which drew criticism from Cleveland'as largely White mainstream media.
Also a former BakerHostetler attorney, Lance Mason was the second judge in three years to face felony charges in the common pleas court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties statewide, and a county that includes the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland. .
Former Bedford Municipal Court judge Harry Jacob, who is White, and was a pimp by all accounts, sources say, got a reprieve from any felony convictions following a bench trial in 2017 before Common Pleas Judge Brian Corrigan.
Shaker Heights is a prominent Cleveland suburb and Cleveland is among some 59 municipalities, villages or townships of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties statewide that is roughly 29 percent Black, and a Democratic stronghold.
A Shaker Heights Democrat before his assault case, and a former state senator, Mason faced between nine and 36 months in prison when was sentenced before visiting judge Patricia Cosgrove. She was assigned to hear the case by Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor after none of his fellow common pleas judges, two of them Black women, would not hear the case.
He was a protege of former congresswomen Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died in office in 2008, and Black Democrats, including Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, who succeeded Tubbs Jones, and they and other Black Democrats, and others, covered for his mistakes.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, also a Democrat and a Black mayor in his fourth term in office, hired him in 2017 as an administrator for minority businesses at City Hall.
He was reportedly among 13 applicants for the job, his selection in the midst of a felony conviction of violence of which drew criticism from Cleveland'as largely White mainstream media.
Also a former BakerHostetler attorney, Lance Mason was the second judge in three years to face felony charges in the common pleas court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties statewide, and a county that includes the majority Black major metropolitan city of Cleveland. .
Former Bedford Municipal Court judge Harry Jacob, who is White, and was a pimp by all accounts, sources say, got a reprieve from any felony convictions following a bench trial in 2017 before Common Pleas Judge Brian Corrigan.
Jacob, 61, resigned from the bench and surrendered his law licence after convictions on five misdemeanor counts, including solicitation and falsification of court records. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail by Corrigan, and given two years probation. He also received six months house arrest, and a fine of $2500.
Jacobs' victims were drug addicted women, whom he took advantage of, prosecutors said. He was a corrupt and greedy judge, an investigation by Cleveland Urban News.Com reveals, and he got off easy by escaping charges for documented kidnapping of Black women in the court, and denying indigent Blacks counsel in serious cases.
Corrigan dismissed all of the felony charges against Jacob, including obstruction of justice and tampering with records, and was too lenient, community activists say, likely because Jacob is White, and was a judge.
Neither of the two judges ended their judicial careers without a fight, Jacob appealing his convictions and losing, and Mason taking the initiative early on to try an get a replacement for a county prosecutor that he says was bias and represented a conflict of interest.
Efforts by Lance Mason's attorney, Fernando Mack, to remove Prosecutor McGinty from the assault case and assign a special prosecutor, failed, McGinty losing reelection to fellow Democrat and now County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley in 2016.
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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