Pictured are former Cuyahoga County Jail warden Eric Ivey and Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chiefBy Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com -CLEVELAND, Ohio - Former Cuyahoga County Jail Warden Eric Ivey, who is Black and was demoted to associate warden after he was indicted on felony and other charges earlier this year, was spared jail on Thursday by Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst, the seasoned judge suspending a 180-day jail sentence and handing him a year's probation for his guilty plea in August to two misdemeanors of obstruction of justice and falsification.
He resigned, effective immediately, as part of his plea deal.
The judge also gave him 200 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.
Fuerst said she would jail the former warden if he failed to comply with the terms of his plea deal, including to help prosecutors get indictments on other culprits, her Democratic affiliates in fact, several of them, sources have said.
Though public records show Fuerst herself is corrupt, she told Ivey at sentencing that he breached the public's trust and that she is disappointed in him, the Black man and former warden responding "yes mam."
Activists say that while Fuerst gave the Black warden a break, the judge will harass Black defendants she cannot control or convince to plead guilty when they are innocent.
Ivey, 54, and with some 28-years employment in the jail he ran into the ground, is among some nine jail affiliates indicted following nine inmate deaths since last June, also including former jail director Ken Mills and some six jail guards.
Special prosecutor Matthew Meyer, on behalf of Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, whose office replaced that of County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley per O'Malley's request, emphasized that Ivey must help prosecutors nail others, prosecutors dismissing a charge of tampering with evidence, a third degree felony.
"Your honor, as a condition of the plea, the defendant would agree to testify truthfully and give truthful statements in any proceeding in which he is called upon to do so concerning the Cuyahoga County Jail or the operation of Cuyahoga County government." said Meyer to Fuerst when Ivey accepted his plea deal in August.
The former warden stood accused, among other illegal activities, of ordering correction officers to turn off their body cams relative to a drug overdose that left an inmate dead jail and county officials, including former sheriff Clifford Pinkney, who resigned in August, and current county executive Armond Budish, also accused of ignoring the deaths until the FBI stepped in.
Last November U.S. Marshals released a stinging report of the county jail, one of the most notorious jails in the country, and deemed the mistreatment of inmates, including ignoring and covering up inmate deaths, rodent and roach infested facilities, the housing of pregnant women on mats on the floor, withholding food for punishment and assault on female and other inmates, inhumane and unconstitutional.
Cleveland activists were upset with the plea deal, and with Fuerst, and picketed outside of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in downtown Cleveland Thursday before Ivey was sentenced, activists demanding jail time for the former warden.
They say the judge gave the former warden a pass because the victims of his jail mishaps are disproportionately Black and overwhelming poor, though most of the dead inmates were White, sources saying he ran the jail like a modern day plantation.
White inmates were shown favoritism, particularly by jail sergeants and corporals who do inmate discipline and jail cell placements when inmates are booked in, most of the corporals, and the sergeants, for both men and women inmates, of whom are White men.
"Judge Fuerst accepting a misdemeanor plea deal from the former warden of the county jail is unacceptable," said longtime activist Art McKoy of Black on Black Crime Inc.
Five of the nine inmate deaths were purportedly the result of suicide.
Fuerst is also under fire for denying Blacks and activists their speedy trial rights, and scheduling trials not journalized or put in writing and then arbitrarily jailing Black defendants maliciously accused of crimes against racist White cops when they do not appear for her unconstitutional trials.
Public records also reveal that she is ordering Blacks to trials she schedules in under 24 hours without formal notice, and then jailing them via arrest warrants if they fail to appear. And, data show that she is covering up alleged indictment fixing by fellow judges prosecutors and the clerk of courts, grand jury tampering, and falsification of court records, much of it with the help of corrupt attorneys she handpicks and appoints to felony cases of indigent Blacks.
Further, she is refusing to journalize when Blacks show at trial and cops who claim they have assaulted them do not, an alleged effort, says sources, to manipulate speedy trial rights. And, she is issuing orders for Black defendants to be jailed if they insult or take up too much time of White indigent counsel she handpicks for felony cases before her, and if they ask them to file motions that she and assistant county White prosecutors deem unnecessary.
Activists want Fuerst, 66 and up for reelection to another six-year term in 2020, voted out of office and demanded such at a rally on May 23 outside of the county jail.
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief at Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and Black blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Coleman is an experienced Black political reporter who covered the 2008 presidential election for the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio and the presidential elections in 2012 and 2016 As to the one-on-one interview by Coleman with Obama CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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