By Kathy Wray Coleman, Publisher, Editor-n-Chief,

Kathy Wray Coleman is  a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

BREAKING NEWS: JUDGES AND LAWYERS BEHAVING BADLY, AN EPIDEMIC (A CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM ONGOING COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION)

Bedford, Ohio- In spite of a suspension of disqualification from the bench last year by the Ohio Supreme Court of former Bedford Municipal Court Judge Harry Jacob (pictured) due to a Cuyahoga County Grand Jury indictment on charges of bribery, tampering with evidence and a host of other felonies, and in spite of other embarrassing charges, including that he boldly pimped Black and other women through a prostitution ring and that he fixed cases, the court's website describes pimp Jacob as an upstanding citizen and community advocate (Editor's note: Bedford law director and prosecutor Ken Schuman this week resigned. He took paid leave in November, some two months before an indictment on soliciting, bribery and theft in office).

In fact, his court website curriculum vita, if you will, says also that Jacob "has been appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court to the commission on continuing legal education and his peers have elected him secretary-treasurer of the Northern Ohio Judges Association."

Asked yesterday by Cleveland Urban News.Com, Ohio's leading digital Black newspaper, why Jacob is still put out as a judge though he has been suspended for pimping women and other alleged crimes, court personnel directed questions to Clerk of Court Tom Day, also allegedly involved in criminal activity, data show, but still on the job doing in Blacks and others too.

Jacob has pleaded not guilty to all charges and hired prominent Cleveland lawyer Kevin Spellacy to represent him.

The other judge on the Bedford Municipal Court, Brian Melling, is still hanging around too, doing in Blacks and others also, an investigation reveals, and as a White man, like Day, that is accused of thinking that he too, like Jacob, is above the law.

Melling and Day have harassed Blacks that come before the Bedford court, data show,  denying some of them counsel though deeming them indigent, and unless they go along with the program, both bragging that they have the support of area Black leaders and politicians and the Cleveland NAACP. specifically criminal defense attorneys Michael Nelson Sr. and James Hardiman, relative to their anti-Black and anti-Democratic malfeasance.

Jacob, 57,  did the same thing, data also show, but to a more heightened level.

A recent raid by law enforcement authorities at the former judge's house where he lives  in Solon, Ohio brought more incriminating evidence, data show, and monies allegedly stashed in vents and throughout the Jacob family home.

The city of Bedford is a suburb of Cleveland and has a population of some 13,000 people, and is roughly 44 percent Black.

The Bedford court handles cases from 14 different diverse locations including Bedford itself, neighboring Bedford Heights, and Chagrin Falls, Bentleyville, Chagrin Township, Cleveland Metro Parks, Glen Willow, Highland Hills, Moreland Hills, North Randall, Oakwood Village, Orange, Solon and Warrensville Heights. They are all among the 59 municipalities, villages and townships of Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest of 88 counties, and of which is roughly 29 percent Black.

Jacob, say his foes, is so flagrantly disrespectful of the law that anything that goes on in the Bedford Municipal Court, particularly where Blacks are concerned, is suspect, and wreaks of a prejudicial and hostile judicial environment detrimental to the community and to the administration of justice.

Whether the federal government will intervene and take over the Bedford court where Blacks are disproportionately prosecuted given the malfeasance and clear danger to the Black community and others remains to be seen.(www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)