CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM- CLEVELAND, Ohio - Former Cleveland and Chicago schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the mother of Cuyahoga County Clerk of Courts Nailah Byrd, has been sentenced in Chicago, Illinois to 4 1/2 years in prison  (Stay tuned for a detailed investigation of public corruption by Nailah Byrd as Clerk of Courts in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland and where Blacks are her primary target, data show. The investigation also reveals malfeasance by several attorneys for indigent Blacks charged with felony crimes, including attorney and former judicial candidate William McGinty. And several common pleas judges, including Judge John O'Donnell, who has illegally foreclosed on county residents for JPMorgan Chase Bank and others, and the White male judges Michael Russo, Joe Russo, and chief Judge John Russo, are all perpetuating public corruption, research reveals. The scam, data show,  is to the detriment of innocent Blacks falsely accused of crimes, and the Black community and others in general).

Cuyahoga County, the second largest of 88 counties statewide, includes the majority Black city of Cleveland, and is 29 percent Black and a Democratic stronghold for political elections.

The sentence on Byrd-Bennett, 68, was handed down from federal district court judge Edmond Chang on Friday in Illinois, and was more lenient than the seven years recommended by prosecutors.

Byrd-Bennett was CEO of Cleveland schools from 1998 to 2006, and was the first CEO to lead under a newly enacted state law that scrapped and elected school board and gave control of the city's majority Black public schools to the mayor, then Michael R. White, who, like Byrd-Bennett, is Black.

Her downfall came as she was in charge of Chicago schools.

In October 2015, she pleaded guilty to steering more that $20 million in contracts from the largely Black impoverish Chicago Public School District to a former employer.

Federal prosecutors said Byrd-Bennett's theft was exceptionally alarming because she stole from a public school district and its poor children, most of them Black.

Her lenient sentence came with a plea agreement for her to snitch on others.

Nailah Byrd, who is also Black, is under fire for falsifying court dockets to illegally cancel legitimate bond payments to keep Blacks in jail for corrupt judges, other politicians and others, and for fraudulently altering criminal indictments to hurt Blacks by arbitrarily increasing the charges and penalties in malicious prosecution cases in common pleas court in place of a judge, even though a judge cannot increase penalties with out a grand jury indictment.  And the malicious criminal charges include false allegations of assault on White police officers, which is partly why Byrd if manipulating case dockets for police, sources say. (Editor's note Criminal Rule 7 of the Ohio Rules of Criminal Procedure allows for an amendment of a grand jury indictment only by a judge and that judge can not change the identify or the name in the case or increase penalties where only a grand jury can do such, It violates the Ohio Constitution, where only a county grand jury can indict in state cases, and Nailah Byrd is actually switching original indictments with falsified indictments that increase charges if they are accusations of innocent Blacks of assault on corrupt White cops,  and she is calling them originals on the case dockets.

This is with support from the office of the county prosecutor, and some corrupt judges, including the White male judges Russo, namely John Russo, the chief judge, Michael Russo and Joseph Russo. Attorneys involved in this public corruption include formerly suspended attorney James Alexander, pro cop attorney William McGinty, who ran unsuccessfully for judge, and Donald Butler of the law firm Donald Butler & Associates, a lazy and obese attorney who is accused of selling out indigent Blacks in felony cases after being handpicked and appointed to such cases by common pleas judges such as Daniel Gaul and Joseph Russo.

Attorney Butler of Cleveland Heights is also being used by corrupt judges and assistant county prosecutors, data show,  to trick Blacks into taking plea deals on illegal indictments that are subsequently amended, knowing dismissal is in order and that defendants would waive any efforts to challenge the illegal indictment on appeal, absent a claim on appeal of plain error. And if his clients are indigent, and likely otherwise too, Attorney Butler will just do them in and refuse to withdraw from the malicious felony cases, knowing the judges that handpicked him such as common pleas judges Joseph Russo and Daniel Gaul as the attorney will likely support him, data also show).

The names of the victimized Black defendants, many of them maliciously prosecuted, are being withheld for now for their protection, several of them telling Cleveland Urban News.Com during its investigation that they are being harassed by corrupt judges, prosecutors, police and some key Black leaders that the White establishment utilizes to help cover up malfeasance, racism, sexism and heightened public corruption.

The Cleveland NAACP, led by local criminal defense attorney Michael Nelson Sr., who fraternizes with some of the corrupt judges at issue, is conveniently overlooking the public corruption that is tearing at the fabric of greater Cleveland's Black community, with Black remaining the major targets, research reveals.

The younger Byrd is not elected but appointed as clerk of courts for the county by Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, and the 11- member Cuyahoga County Council. Her job entails overseeing court monies and the case docket for the general division common pleas court, where felonies, civil lawsuits with damages sought in excess of $15,000, and other legal matters are heard, as well as the docket for other trial courts in the county, and the 8th District Court of Appeals.

Nailah Byrd is also back-dating court orders from common pleas judges like Judge Joe Russo to frame Blacks with illegal convictions, research reveals. And their corrupt and lazy indigent lawyers work to try to cover up the malfeasance and push for plea deals when they know their clients are innocent, a scheme in exchange for more indigent clients, mainly poor Blacks, whom they can sellout for money.

Community activists have called for Nailah Byrd, clerk of courts since 2015 and formerly the inspector general for the county, to be investigated and fired, and in comparison to her mother, they say "the apple does not fall far from the tree."