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OAK HARBOR, OHIO---The criminal docket for Cuyahoga County Court in northern Ohio says that all cases for Elsebeth Baumgartner are closed.
But that's not true.
And the docket has other false information listed on it too.
Disbarred attorney and pharmacist Baumgartner, 50, had been scheduled for trial in Cuyahoga County before Common Pleas Court Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold on Dec. 12 on multiple felony counts of intimidation and retaliation on complaint of retired visiting judge Richard Markus who claimed that Baumgartner had intimidated him by sending him emails critical of his judicial performance.
Baumgartner has been charged with eight counts of intimidating a judge, four counts of falsification, two counts of retaliation and possession of criminal tools, a laptop computer.
There has been no adjudication of the charges against Baumgartner, she has not been to trial, she has not pleaded guilty. There is no disposition to the case---at least in terms of the Constitution.
But the docket shows that there are no cases pending against Baumgartner in Cuyahoga County.
Baumgartner says that all efforts are being made to keep the case from going to trial because of the egregious rights violations and constitutional issues as well as the egregious conflicts of interest involving Judge Markus, the complainant; Judge Saffold and prosecutor Daniel Kasaris.
Baumgartner is scheduled for a competency hearing Thursday morning at 9 a.m. before Saffold, a judge who has demonstrated an overwhelming bias against Baumgartner and numerous conflicts of interest, including past discussions about Baumgartner with Markus, the complaining witness, but has so far refused to recuse herself. The conflicts became even more blatant when the prosecutor's office represented the judge as her personal attorney in the bias motion filed against her with the Ohio Supreme Court.
Baumgartner had unsuccessfully argued in November for the removal of Saffold from the case for bias but the Ohio Supreme Court rejected her motion.
Baumgartner has been a long-time critic of Ohioan government, both local and state, alleging massive federal and state grant fraud as well as abuses of power by public officials, particularly Erie County district attorney Kevin Baxter and numerous judges in northern Ohio. She teamed up with former Marine Bryan DuBois, 28, in the publication of Erie Voices, www.erievoices.com/blog, a website that publishes articles and opinion alleging misconduct by public officials in several northern Ohio counties including Cuyahoga, Erie, Lucas and Ottawa.
Both she and DuBois were arrested this past summer following a secret indictment which alleged that they had intimidated Markus by allegedly sending him emails expressing their opinions about various issues before him.
DuBois disavowed any relationship with Baumgartner after the court appearance on Dec. 12.
When Baumgartner and DuBois appeared in court Dec. 12, Baumgartner produced a note from her personal physician stating that she was not competent to stand trial, asking for a continuance.
Saffold refused to accept the note and ordered that the trial begin immediately although Baumgartner was not represented by counsel. Baumgartner says that she had not been given any notice of trial date and to the best of her knowledge, no trial date had been set. She has never signed a waiver of counsel and is entitled by the Sixth Amendment to legal counsel.
When Saffold ordered that Baumgartner be admitted to the Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare System for evaluation and treatment although no hearing had been held and without Baumgartner having legal counsel, a violation of her Sixth Amendment rights, Baumgartner opened her purse and swallowed an unknown quantity of prescription pills. She says she was trying to get the medical community involved because Saffold had just made a medical decision without authority, in essence practicing medicine without a license from the bench.
Baumgartner was immediately removed from the courtroom, remanded by Saffold to the Cuyahoga County Jail without holding a hearing, a denial of due process.
In an exclusive interview Tuesday with The North Country Gazette, Baumgartner raised numerous constitutional issues regarding Saffold's handling of the case, including that Saffold had, without medical diagnois or examination, diagnosed Baumgartner incompetent. Baumgartner says that Saffold ordered that she be committed to Northcoast for 20 days. She says that she has been held in excess of 37 days, in violation of Ohio law. The criminal docket indicates that Baumgartner was jailed on Dec. 12, without reason given and on Dec. 20 was released from jail. There is no indication in the docket of the whereabouts of Baumgartner from Dec. 20 until Jan. 11 although she was at Northcoast. The docket untruthfully indicates that she wasn't "referred for mental treatment until competent" until Jan. 11.
Although Safford had ruled from the bench without medical advice that Baumgartner was mentally traumatized, she ordered her to jail without treatment from Dec. 12 until Dec. 20, according to the records and without stating on the record the cause for Baumgartner's incarceration and without a hearing. www.cuyahogacounty.us
It would appear as though Cuyahoga County and Judge Saffold have closed the case against Baumgartner by denying her her constitutional right to trial and without any medical diagnosis, instead Saffold rendering Baumgartner incompetent without any hearing or any evaluation by medical professionals.
Baumgartner had been ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination last summer which she passed.
Baumgartner, who spoke calmly and rationally with sound grasp of the facts and the applicable law---especially the constitutional law at issue in her case-- says the conditions at Northcoast are abhorrent and may be in violation of state law in that she is being housed in an open area with 19 other patients-mostly men. She says that there is no segregation between males and females and that she has been housed with convicted murderers and rapists, some of whom are clearly psychotic and which has placed her in physical danger.
She says that according to Ohio law, the competency hearing had to be held first, not last as Saffold has done.
Baumgartner has retained attorney Jeff Kelleher, an experienced defense attorney who recently defended 23-year-old Joshua Pfeil who had been charged with misdemeanor assault on complaint of Cleveland Browns quarterback Trent Dilfer. Pfeil was acquitted following jury trial.
In November, Saffold had arbitrarily sent Baumgartner to jail for three days, revoking her $25,000 bond but stating no reason on the record for the incarceration.
Court officials later tried to claim it was because Baumgartner had "disrespected" the court but the court record fails to support that claim, especially since Saffold had adjourned court and left the bench.
Saffold's action against Baumgartner was particularly significant as the Ohio Supreme Court had imposed a stay in the Baumgartner case pending their ruling on Baumgartner's motion to disqualify Safford and other Ohio judges from hearing the charges against her saying that the extreme bias harbored against her by Saffold and the other judges denied her fair trial rights.
The case of Baumgartner and DuBois evolves around the free speech right to criticize public officials. The duo have been charged for allegedly intimidating and threatening visiting retired judge Richard Markus in the fall of 2004, based on a complaint made by Markus, albeit not until months after the alleged incident and after Markus had ruled against Baumgartner in a civil case, imposed a $175,000 judgment against her and then cited her for 34 counts of contempt for criticizing him.
The duo, publishers of Erie Voices, a blog which focuses on judicial and political corruption in northern Ohio, were charged last summer with multiple felonies in a secret indictment obtained by prosecutor Daniel Kasaris whose boss, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Bill Mason, has been the target of the blog's allegations of wrongdoing.
Kasaris indicted Baumgartner and DuBois in July, one day after DuBois filed a grievance against Kasaris and retired visiting judge Markus with the Cuyahoga County Bar Association. Kasaris is now prosecuting the Erie Voices writers and Markus is the complainant in the case, alleging that DuBois and Baumgartner intimidated him with an email on the eve of a civil trial last November in which Baumgartner was the defendant.
In her affidavit in her effort to have Saffold removed from the case for bias, Baumgartner argued that since the complaining witness against her is Markus, a prominent judge who has served in Cuyahoga County and has close political ties with many Cuyahoga County officials, the entire Cuyahoga bench should be disqualified. Records show that Chief Justice Tom Moyer has ruled that when an appearance of unfairness exists because a jurist is involved in the case, the entire bench was disqualified.
Baumgartner had also filed a written motion seeking a continuance in her matter which was arbitrarily denied by Safford. Safford had adjourned the matter until Nov. 22 on the basis of the Supreme Court stay and had left the bench. In a conversational tone to DuBois and others and not addressed to the judge, Baumgartner reportedly stated "I'll be amending the affidavit of bias…."
DuBois said that Safford suddenly stopped, turned and returned to the microphone, calling for the deputy of the court. Safford then stated, "All right, we're going back on the record---deputy, arrest her, I'm revoking her bond".
Saffold gave no cause on the record for revocation of the bond and incarceration, DuBois and Baumgartner say. One cannot legally be jailed without cause.
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© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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