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CLEVELAND, Ohio- Women in greater Cleveland will rally on Tue, June 28, 2022 outside of the Cuyahoga County Administration building in downtown Cleveland beginning at 4:45pm as we continue our protests over the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. Activists want county council members to speak out for women of greater Cleveland as we fight for our lives and for reproductive rights in Ohio. The Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade relegated authority over abortion to the state legislatures in the country, and women are in trouble in Ohio relative to its largely male and predominantly Republican state legislature. CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE FOR THIS EVENT This event will go forward with or without a county council meeting

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

RALLY TODAY, FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2022- FREE STAMP AT WILLARD PARK NEXT TO AT CLEVELAND CITY HALL IN DOWNTOEN CLEVELAND THE . U.S. SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED ROE V WADE TODAY

Pictured are Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg, former Newburgh Hts mayor Trevor Elkins, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley (wearing white shirt)

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM- CLEVELAND, Ohio-A Republican Cuyahoga County common pleas judge in Cleveland, Ohio ignored a plea agreement between prosecutors and former Newburgh Hts. mayor Trevor Elkins, a Democrat, and handed the former suburban mayor jail time anyway, an option the judge could exercise under Ohio law.

In rejecting the  plea agreement that included no jail time, five years probation, and a fine, the judge issued a minimal fine and sentenced Elkins to six months in jail, with 150 days of that suspended, coupled with one year of community control and  200 hours of community service. If he completes the 200 hours of community service, the judge  said she would consider early termination of his probation.

Some sources say the judge's actions were politically motivated and others say Elkins, who is White, got off easy in terms of how the traditional Black defendant is treated by the assistant county prosecutors under County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, a Democrat, and by the 34 largely White general division common judges of Cuyahoga County, which includes the majority Black city of Cleveland and is a Democratic stronghold.

Most criminal cases are resolved by plea bargains. In a plea bargain, a defendant agrees to plead guilty in exchange for concessions from prosecutors when it comes to sentencing. Courts also often encourage plea deals because they reduce backlogs, and judges typically abide by the plea deals. But not all of the time.

Though the practice is rare and even rarer when prosecutors strike plea deals with politicians,  judges can reject plea deals. And that is what happened on Tuesday when Judge Joan Synenberg, a former Cleveland Municipal Court judge who has served on the  general division common pleas bench in Cuyahoga County for 14 years, sentenced the former mayor  of Newburgh Hts to 30 days in jail, after he pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors that stem from a state elections commission investigation regarding the misappropriation of campaign funds.

He was indicted by a county grand jury on felony charges, but ultimately pleaded guilty to a trio of misdemeanors, and he faced a fine and up to 180 days in jail after his plea.

At sentencing, Synenberg, a Republican with ties to Democrats who also helped her get elected initially to the common pleas bench, called Elkins' actions "unfathomable" and said he violated the public's trust.

The judge has a reputation of not always bowing down to prosecutors. She fought to free and exonerate a man who spent 20 years on death row after she learned police and prosecutors hid evidence that would have exonerated him.

In 2016, she became the first Cuyahoga County judge in three decades to reject a jury's death penalty recommendation when she sent a man who killed three people at a Warrensville Heights barbershop to prison for life instead. At the time the judge said the man's history of untreated mental problems and long time abuse when he was child merited her decision.

Elkins pleaded guilty in April to two counts of attempted election falsification and one count of attempted theft in office after a  state elections commission investigation found that he had used more than $134,000 of campaign funds for personal use between 2015 and 2019, money investigators say he spent at bars and restaurants, and for other ventures.

Elkins, 49, claimed the money was not from campaign donors and instead came from funds he deposited into his campaign account. He said he repaid the money and told investigators and the judge that he did not know that it is illegal to commingle personal and campaign funds.

The former mayor had complained prior to accepting a plea deal that he was allegedly being politically targeted for failing to go along with the staus quo within his own Democratic party and sources said that his backing of particular progressive Democratic candidates for office may have drawn the ire of some powerful Democrats.

The plea agreement that got him jail time anyway also calls for Elkins to pay a $750 fine and not to run for office in Cuyahoga County through 2028. He was also forced to resign from his $69,000 a year job as  mayor of the village of some 1,800 people.

His successor as mayor, former council president Gigi Traore, is a Black Democrat and the first Black to lead the tiny largely White village of working class people.

Activists said Tuesday that they are concerned when judges reject plea agreements for possible political reasons and that they question whether County Prosecutor Mike O'Malley, a big wig with the county Democratic party, was aware that Elkins might likely be hauled off to jail despite a plea deal with prosecutors that provided for no jail time.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. 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

New Cuyahoga County Democratic Party Chairman David Brock and 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Shontel M. Brown (D-OH), a Warrensville Heights Democrat and the former chair of the county Democratic party, its first woman and first Black party chair

By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief

CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM- EUCLID, Ohio- Executive committee members of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party chose Cleveland west side organizer David Brock during a meeting on Saturday to lead the county Democratic party as the midterm elections near, an election for party chair that saw Blacks lose their grip on the powerful party once led by 11th Congressional District Congressman Shontel M. Brown

A former county councilwoman, Brown succeeded Marcia L Fudge in Congress, Fudge her political mentor and a 12-year congresswoman who vacated her congressional seat in March of 2021 to serve as secretary of housing and urban development with President Joe Biden's administration.

Brown, 46, announced in late January that she would step down in June to dedicate more time to congressional work, though her dual role as congresswoman and party chair caused a degree of friction among party insiders and drew the ire of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper.

Brown and Fudge are both Black, Brown making history when she was first elected county party chair in 2017, its first Black and first female party chair. When she won the post  some five years ago,  she succeeded attorney Stuart Garson, who had quit the unpaid job, Garson stepping in initially after Jimmy Dimora, the imprisoned former party chair and county commissioner who preceded Garson for the post, ran afoul of the FBI and federal prosecutors.

Brock is White and won for party chair Saturday over four other candidates, namely state Rep Kent Smith of Euclid, state Rep Juanita Brent of Cleveland, former Shaker Hts councilman Rob Zimmerman, and community activist Ernie Harris, the former president of the activist group Black on Black Crime and a retired Cleveland schools programs support employee.

Harris and Brent are Black, Brent the daughter of the late and former state representative Vermel Whalen.

Brock told his fellow Democrats after being voted in as party chair that “It’s about how hard you work, how hard you work together."

Sources say his strongest asset in winning the confidence of executive committee members to snag the leadership role to lead the county's Democrats is community organizing, and hopefully the ability to raise monies and get Democrats elected and reelected.

Smith was ahead during the first round of voting but after Brent, Zimmerman and Harris dropped out before a second vote could be taken and backed Brock, Smith ultimately lost with Brock winning 55 percent of the vote to his 45 percent.

A community activist-turned-state representative, Brent was later chosen at Saturday's meeting as party vice chair, replacing Kevin Kelley, who lost a nonpartisan election last year for mayor as the then city council president to newcomer Justin Bibb, the city's fourth Black mayor, and its second youngest mayor.

Interim county party chair Blaine Griffin, now president of Cleveland City Council and who stepped in temporarily for Brown, chaired Saturday's voting session, Griffin a Black east side councilman who leads Ward 6 and a former community relations board director under former Mayor Bibbs' predecessor.

A county of some 1.2 million people, Cuyahoga County includes Cleveland, and is the second largest of 88 counties statewide, behind Franklin County, which includes the capital city of Columbus.. A Democratic stronghold that is roughly 29 percent Black, former president Barack Obama won the county in 2008, and again in 2012.

The county Dems continue to recover from a long term public corruption and FBI probe that brought some 61 guilty pleas or convictions since 2008, mainly White businessmen associated with the county Democratic party, and including two former Democratic common pleas judges that served federal prison sentences.

Jimmy Dimora, a former county party chairperson serving a reduced 28-year federal prison sentence for racketeering and public corruption, and Dimora's sidekick and once a powerful county Democratic party operative, former county auditor Frank Russo, who took a plea deal for a 22-year prison sentence and died earlier this year following early release due to the COVID-19 scare, were the main targets of the sting that Democrats say was politically motivated. At the time Dimora was also chair of the county Democratic party.

A  delayed primary for Ohio lawmakers that followed a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over state legislative redistricting maps, will finally go forward on Aug. 2 and the November general election is sure to bring more attention to Ohio for that reason, and others.

Gov Mike DeWine, a GOP incumbent, faces Democrat and former Dayton mayor Nan Whaley for an all out showdown for governor in November, an election in which Ohio's U.S. Senate race is also being closely watched nationwide.

Also at issue, among statewide, congressional and other offices also on the ballot, is the fight to replace retiring Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, as well as elections for two other seats on the court that Republicans hold. Currently, Republicans hold all of the statewide offices, other than three seats on the Supreme Court that the Democrats occupy. Whether this will change via this election cycle remains to be seen.