Pictured are former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Lance Mason, who is Black, former Bedford Municipal Court judge Harry Jacob ( wearing red tie), and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty (wearing green tie) .
By KathyWray Coleman, editor-in-chief ...Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
(www.clevelandurbannews.com) /(www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Democratic former Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Lance Mason, who was one of three Blacks on the largely White general division court that serves Cleveland and its suburbs of Cuyahoga County before his suspension and subsequent resignation from the bench, was sentenced to 24 months in prison Wednesday for beating his wife, a sentence handed down by visiting judge Patricia Cosgrove.
A retired judge who last served on the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Cosgrove was handpicked and assigned to the case by Republican Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Conner. (Editor's note: Data show that these handpicked high paid visiting judges are often corrupt and unfair, and they target people throughout Ohio, Blacks, outspoken lawyers, community activists, and others, and with support from the mainstream media, biased prosecutors, and others. A bill requested by Cleveland area community activists and the Imperial Women Coalition, which is led by local activist Kathy Wray Coleman, was sponsored by state Rep Bill Patmon (D-10) , a Cleveland Democrat, and seeks the random draw assignment and reassignment, at all times, of Ohio trial court judges in multi-judge courts. It remains stagnant).
Mason's judicial colleagues on the 34-member common pleas bench refused to hear the case.
Also a former Democratic state senator, Mason told the court that he accepts responsibility for his actions.
"I make no excuses, I mean I beat my wife in front of my kids," he said before he was handcuffed and hauled off to jail to begin serving his prison term. "I mourn the harm I did to my family."
Visiting Judge Cosgrove said that the sentence fits the crime, and that the disgraced former judge ferociously took his frustrations out on his estranged wife.
Mason, 48 , pleaded guilty to one count of felonious assault this summer.
The other charges were dropped as part of the plea deal, including two counts of kidnapping, two other counts of felonious assault, and two counts of endangering children.
The sentence is unprecedented in Cuyahoga County for a first time offender of his stature, raising questions, sources said, of whether racism is at play, particularly since domestic violence is routinely tolerated, and public corruption , which Mason has not been accused of, is practically an everyday thing, public records show.
White judges and White elected officials in general often do as they please without legal repercussions, data show.
They send Blacks to prison while Whites go home for the same crimes a study commissioned by the Cleveland NAACP says, and they steal homes with big banks and mortgage companies that give them monies under the table, research reveals.
They also condone arbitrary police killings of unarmed Blacks, and fix cases in droves.
Unless the FBI and the U.S. district attorney's office are at the helm, these culprits get away with murder, a source said yesterday.
A public corruption probe, led by the FBI, has netted some 46 guilty pleas or convictions in the last five years or so, mainly businessmen, two judges, and a host of others, including former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, and former county auditor Frank Russo, both of them Democrats, and both serving over 20 years in federal prison for crimes in office.
Others do not feel sorry for Judge Mason, and say he got what he deserved.
"I go to the hair dresser with his wife, and for him to beat her is terrible," a community activist, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, told Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leader in Black digital news.
Violence against women and girls is a problem of pandemic proportions.
Statistics show that roughly one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, and the abuser is usually someone known to her.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, a White Democrat and former common pleas judge himself, applauded the sentence, though the county prosecutor routinely shields White cops that gun down unarmed Blacks from prosecution, and pushes for lenient sentences for White judges convicted of crimes.
Those that complain of his partiality are often harassed by cops, judges, prosecutors and others that McGinty controls, data also show.
McGinty is up for reelection next year, and said in a press statement after the sentencing that Mason will "be rehabilitated."
Efforts by Mason's attorney, Fernando Mack, to remove Prosecutor McGinty from the case and assign a special prosecutor failed.
Several supporters spoke at the sentencing and sought leniency, including the former judge's sister, and Black Cleveland area clergy.
Court documents state that the former judge hit his wife 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 Mason, 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.
Aisha Mason, who did not attend the sentencing, filed for divorce Aug. 4, 2014, a day after the incident at issue. Her divorce petition cites, among other claims, extreme cruelty and gross neglect of duty.
Mason is the second judge in under a year to face felony charges in the common pleas court of Cuyahoga County, which has some 59 municipals townships or villages, including Cleveland , is Ohio's largest of 88 counties statewide.
Former Bedford Municipal Court judge Harry Jacob, who is White, and was a pimp, by all accounts, who blatantly ran a prostitution ring out of the court, got a reprieve from any felony convictions following a bench trial last year before Common Pleas Judge Brian Corrigan.
A Republican, Jacob, 58, resigned from the bench and surrendered his law license 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.
Jacob's victims were drug addicted women, many of them Black 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 Mason taking the initiative early on to try an get a replacement for a county prosecutor that he says was biased, and represented a conflict of interest since he and McGinty, a longtime common pleas judge turned prosecutor, served on the common pleas bench together.
