Pictured are new Cuyahoga County Sheriff Cliff Pinkney (wearing dark grey tie), Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish (in white shirt), and Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell (in white shirt with judicial robe and his hands folded)
By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News.Com, and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com, Ohio's most read digital Black newspaper and newspaper blog. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com.
Coleman is a community activist, legal and political reporter, and a 22-year investigative journalist who trained at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio for 17 years.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
PUBLIC CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION BY CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S BLACK NEWS LEADER : JUDGES AND OTHER PUBLIC OFFICIALS ACTING BADLY WITH GANGSTA LAWYERS AND RICH AND CORRUPT JPMORGAN CHASE BANK ALSO AT THE HELM, AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION (XC: CLEVELAND FBI)
CLEVELAND, Ohio- Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, on April 14, swore in former deputy chief Clifford Pinkney as the new county sheriff, a historical action as Pinkney is the county's first Black sheriff ever.
Cuyahoga County includes the city of Cleveland and is the largest of Ohio's 88 counties.
The swearing in came after Cuyahoga County Council unanimously approved the appointment moments earlier.
"With over nearly 25 years in the sheriff's department Cliff Pinkney has demonstrated his effectiveness, his integrity, and his commitment to get the job done," said Budish when he named Pinkney, 52, as county sheriff earlier this year.
The promotion of Pinkney comes following a commitment to diversity in county employees by Budish while on the campaign trail last year, and demands by community activists for more diversity in the rank and file of Cuyahoga County government.(Editor's note: As to the meeting with Budish and community activists last year while Budish was on the campaign trail CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACKDIGITAL NEWS).
Pinkney replaces ousted former sheriff Frank Bova, who was handed an artificial post with the county until he retires, sources said.
Pinkney is a 24-year veteran of the county sheriff's office where he worked with the narcotics bureau and the FBI on drug and gang-related cases. He was promoted to deputy chief in 2013. He is also leading the investigation into the Cleveland police shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, an unprecedented shooting that occurred late last year and has generated ongoing community protests.
Cleveland police killings are gaining national attention, including the shooting deaths in 2012 of unarmed Blacks Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell by 13 non- Black Cleveland cops slinging 137 bullets. Only one of the police officers, Michael Brelo, was charged, and with two counts of voluntary manslaughter.
Brelo is currently on trial before Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell, a crook, public records reveal, who stole homes via fake foreclosure cases for banks and mortgage companies like JPMorgan Chase Bank, along with a host of other judges like Carolyn Friedland, and in cooperation with the office of the county sheriff, under Bova, ousted former sheriff Bob Reid, and former elected sheriff and convicted criminal Gerald McFaul.
O'Donnell stole homes for Chase without Chase even suing the homeowners, and he would allow Chase to purchase the homes at illegal sheriffs sales under fake names, and for a fourth of the county assessed appraisal value, in violation of state law. Technically, he could not getaway with the theft because the sheriff's office would then refuse to put the homeowners out of their homes, leaving a stalemate. O'Donnell, data also show, mainly targeted Black women that he had been stalking for years.
Complaints about the judge's theft and harassment, and that of some of the other 34 largely White general division common pleas judges, fell on death ears to the Cleveland NAACP, former county prosecutor Bill Mason and current prosecutor Tim McGinty, and to police in county municipalities, including University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld.
Infeld doubles as a rarely seen safety director, and is a Jimmy Dimora ally.
Dimora, a former chair of the county democratic party and a former county commissioner and Democrat like Infeld, is currently serving a 28-year-federal prison sentence for racketeering and a host of other corruption-related crimes.
Chief Foreclosure Magistrate Stephen Bucha, a University Heights resident, and his wife, an attorney with the Lerner, Sampson and Rothfuss law firm, helped with the foreclosure fraud and other corruption too, among others.
Bucha would also hear the fake foreclosure cases that had no plaintiff or mortgage company with Judge O'Donnell as his boss, and partner in public corruption, data show, and though O'Donnell had no jurisdiction or authority whatsoever to preside over cases without plaintiffs.
Appeals to the Ohio Eight District Court of Appeals of O'Donnell's corruption, and often that of other judges stealing homes, are often met with corruption, public records show, and are illegally dismissed by corrupt judges there, some of them of whom are operatives of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
And Bucha would also approve the theft of the homes and subsequent sheriff sales of them for a fourth of the county appraisal to Chase and others, sometimes friends of the Republican and Democratic parties , and Cleveland NAACP affiliates. If Bucha got caught in recent years, the Chief Common Pleas Judge John Russo would replace him with other foreclosure magistrates in the cases at issue , common pleas court case dockets reveal.
The victims of the alleged theft and the harassment say that in retaliation for complaining they would get harassed by attorneys for the Cleveland NAACP and some of its officials, the county prosecutor, and police, including home break ins with police support, threats of harm, false arrests and illegal jail stays in the county jail where they are held naked, defamation, and malicious prosecutions. Moreover, data show that the homeowners were current on their mortgages under the law and had often paid on them for nearly a decade without refinancing.
Law firms hired by Chase to assist O'Donnell and some other common pleas judges in the theft and harassment are Reimer and Lorber, Thompson Hine, Lerner, Sampson and Rothfuss, and Bricker and Eckler.
Longtime former sheriff McFaul was ousted from office in 2009 due to his criminal endeavors,including harassing employees for campaign donations. (Editor's note: McFaul, and former sheriffs Reid and Bova stole homes from county residents, data show, by having their appraisers violate state law to deflate the home values of foreclosed homes for sheriff sales below the county appraisal, and in effect denying former home owners that qualified monies sometimes due back after the sale. And in some instances there were no plaintiffs or mortgage companies in the foreclosure cases at issue, data show. State law allows a sheriff to hire appraisers for foreclosed homes for sheriff sales, but only in a legal fashion with the discount for a foreclosed home only being a third off). CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE OF JUDGE JOHN O'DONNELL'S CORRUPTION AND DOCUMENTED THEFT OF HOMES AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM).
Before Budish, who beat Republican County Councilman Jack Schron to win the seat in November, Ed FitzGerald held the county executive job for one four-year term.
Fitzgerald was the county's first county executive pursuant to a voter approved revised governance structure that scrapped the three-member Board of Commissioners and the elected county offices, including the sheriff, clerk of courts, auditor, treasurer, engineer and coroner, all but the elected judges and the county prosecutor. In their place came a county executive and 11-member county council, which now appoints those once elected positions, including the sheriff.
Longtime former sheriff McFaul was the last elected sheriff.
Former county prosecutor Mason, current prosecutor McGinty, Budish, FitzGerald, and Pinkney, and former sheriffs McFaul, Reid,and Bova are all Democrats.
Judge O'Donnell is also a Democrat, and was the Democratic candidate who, in November, tried unsuccessfully to unseat Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judi French, a Republican.
FitzGerald was elected in 2010 and opted not to seek reelection. He was trounced last year in an unsuccessful bid to unseat popular Gov. John Kasich, who is contemplating a run for president in 2016.
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
