Pictured are newly hired Cuyahoga County Jail Warden Michelle Henry, County Executive Armond Budish (wearing suit) ousted county warden Gregory Croucher, and embattled Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Nancy Fuerst
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By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor-in-chief
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com-
CLEVELAND, Ohio-Cuyahoga County has hired a woman to lead the troubled county jail where 9 inmates died during a two year period between 2018-2019, and another died earlier this year, U.S. Marshals issuing a stinging report in November 2018 that deems the gross mistreatment of the majority Black inmates inhumane and unconstitutional.
Michelle Henry, an assistant warden at the Lorain Correctional Institution state prison with 25 years of law enforcement experience, will replace former jail warden Gregory Croucher, Henry the first woman to hold the post
Before Henry's hiring all of the county jail leaders, namely the county executive, sheriff, warden and jail director, who is Ronda Gibson were White, and after the hiring of Henry, a White woman, all of those positions remain held by Whites.
This lack of diversity among the ranks of the jail higher-ups comes at the largely White 11-member county council has deemed racism a public health crisis, area community activists saying county council is hypocritical and allegedly racist relative to its hiring practices.
Cuyahoga County, the second largest of 88 counties statewide, is 29 percent Black and includes Cleveland, a largely Black city led by four-term mayor Frank Jackson, the city's third Black mayor.
The county is a Democratic stronghold.
Henry's first official day on the job will be Aug 31, county spokesperson Mary Louise Madigan said Monday.
She will earn $96,000 annually in her new position.
Croucher resigned in April of this year as the warden hired eight months prior to help reform the jail, his resignation tendered just two days after a county investigation found he retaliated against corrections officers, and allegedly slammed a handcuffed inmate into a wall.
Croucher is also accused of forcing an employee to drive him to the airport on the clock.
Several inmates have tested positive for COVID-19.
Before the coronavirus pandemic broke in the U.S. in March, the embattled jail housed about 2,500 inmates, though it can only hold a maximum of 1,765, coronavirus fears resulting in some 905 low level inmates getting released originally released due the virus from a jail that now houses some 1,060 inmates.
County Executive Armond Budish has said that the inmates infected earlier this year with the coronavirus were quarantined, and that they all allegedly were in a single jail pod.
"None are critically ill," Budish has said.
Budish is under fire after the FBI twice raided his downtown headquarters following the heightened inmate deaths in the jail.
The damning report released in November of 2018 by U.S. Marshals on county jail conditions generated local and national news, a dreadful look at how inmates are mistreated such as withholding food for punishment, jailing juveniles with adults, rat and roach infested jail facilities, and a paramilitary jail corrections officers unit dubbed "The Men in Black" that intimidates and harasses inmates.
The report also found profound mistreatment of female inmates, and that pregnant women were being jailed on floor mats and denied adequate healthcare.
Several lawsuits remain pending regarding the county's now infamous jail.
In addition to the FBI's ongoing investigation of Budish, there have been indictments of at least nine jail guards, the former jail director, and former jail warden Eric Ivey, who is Black preceded Croutcher as jail warden.
Ivey took a misdemeanor plea deal with no jail time with an agreement that he snitch on others.
In the midst of it all sheriff Cliff Pinkney, the county's first Black sheriff appointed by Budish, resigned, his replacement being David Schilling, who is White.
Until recently, the Cuyahoga County Jail was the state's second most populated jail behind Franklin County, which includes Columbus and is the largest of Ohio's counties.
Before the coronavirus outbreak hit Cleveland this year Budish and the 34 largely White general division common pleas judges, then under the leadership of then presiding and administrative Judge John Russo, whom new chief Judge Brendan Sheehan replaced last year by a vote of his judicial peers after Russo decided to step down as chief, did nothing to reduce illegal prosecutions and excessive sentences, and continued to keep the jail overcrowded.
Russo's predecessor, then chief Judge Nancy Fuerst, whom he ousted as chief judge in 2013, acted, in many ways, in the same manner as her successor when she led the general division common pleas court in the county.
Fuerst is under fire by activists for heightened malfeasance against Black defendants in 2018-2020 relative to pending criminal cases she is presiding over.
Public records reveal that Judge Fuerst is denying Blacks and activists indigent counsel and their speedy trial rights, and she is 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 the crooked and allegedly racist judge 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.
Activists want Fuerst's resignation and have called for an FBI investigation on public corruption charges
They say the judge should be indicted and, herself, jailed or imprisoned if found guilty on any such charges.
"We have witnessed Judge Nancy Fuerst abuse her power and we want her prosecuted and off the bench so she cannot hurt anymore people," activist Porter, whose Black on Black Crime group has initiated pickets against the judge for documented malfeasance, has said.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest Newspaper, once branded Fuerst 'Jimmy Dimora corrupt' in an article, referencing the former county commissioner now serving a 28 year sentence for racketeering and other crimes in office.
In a recent case before her an appeals court reversed a whopping 15 convictions.
Since Chief Judge Brendan Sheehan took over as presiding and administrative judge late last year things have gotten somewhat better, data show, Sheehan leading the way in bringing the jail into compliance as to the number inmates housed there, but only after pressure from community leaders and community activists who have been picketing the jail relative to its overcrowding.
The FBI and other authorities have been swarming the jail since 2018 after inmates began popping up dead.
The Cleveland jail merged with the county jail per a regionalism plan adopted by county and city officials in 2017, which created nothing but more problems.
Activists say the jail remains a problem and that they are also concerned with an array of other issues, including excessive bail, malicious prosecutions, racism, grand jury tampering, indictment fixing, denial of indigent counsel and speedy trial rights to Black defendants, and excessive sentences.
Data also show that White inmates were getting favorable treatment and that Black inmates were more harshly disciplined.
Cleveland community activists picketed in front of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center in 2018 over judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance, police misconduct, and the overcrowding of the county jail, a continuation of activist rallies that began in 2016.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, community activists had been picketing regularly at the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland over jail conditions, in front of Budish' gated home in affluent Beachwood, where they called for his resignation, and at county administrative headquarters before county council meetings.
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 NEWS.
