Originally Posted - April 22, 2006

return home

“After more than a decade of corrupt, one party rule in the state, Ohioans are fed up”, William Mason, Cuyahoga County prosecutor, a Democrat, said last week in making an endorsement for Ted Strickland for Ohio Governor. “They are fed up with the scandal-a-day atmosphere swirling around Ohio’s state government”.

Mason was no doubt referring to the powers-that-be in Ohio, where the spotlight on public corruption has been aglow with the ethics convictions of Gov. Bob Taft, the indictment of GOP fundraiser and Taft appointee Thomas Noe and an ongoing federal investigation of attorney general Jim Petro in an alleged pay-to-play scheme.

The federal spotlight needs to focus on Cuyahoga County’s criminal justice system.

Mason is opposing a local judge who he says is lazy and soft on criminals. In that he’s opposing Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge Ann T. Mannen, that would seem to be somewhat on an ethical dilemma. Ethics rules says that the actions of the prosecutor taint the entire office so how can the office prosecute cases before Mannen with Mason openly attacking her?

What’s even more troubling about Mason’s behavior is that he was supporting judicial candidate Christine Russo who was arrested for drug possession in 1994 while employed as an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor under Mason’s predecessor. In January, 1995, she pleaded no contest to drug abuse and paid a $100 fine. She was successful in having the conviction expunged from her record.

In 2003, her brother-in-law, a convicted marijuana dealer, accused her and her husband of assaulting them during Thanksgiving dinner and later accused the judicial candidate of conspiring with him in growing operation and laundering of drug profits. He produced a tape which he said substantiated his allegations. She denied it.

Mason now claims he’s not endorsing anyone in the judicial race but is still speaking out against Mannen. Part of Mason’s bitch with Mannen is that of the 36 non-jury bench trials held, half were acquitted and the charges reduced against 13 others. Only five were convicted as charged.

Perhaps instead of blaming the judge, Mason should take a harder look at the legal sufficiency of the actions he’s trying to prosecute. It appears that his reported 46% acquittal rate isn’t the fault of the judicial system but rather inadequacy of his office. Just how much are the attorneys making off from these fabricated, baseless indictments that are being dismissed?

Perhaps Mason should take a hard look in his own backyard for scandal and instead of intimidating whistleblower Elsebeth Baumgartner with scores of charges for her allegations of corruption in the judicial system and executive branch. Perhaps he should investigate her allegations or is he afraid of a splashback?

Perhaps he should start with his own office where admittedly none of his assistant prosecuting attorneys, including Daniel Kasaris, assigned to the Baumgartner case, have filed their requisite oath of office. In that the APA’s haven’t filed their bonds as required, not only is Mason responsible but by failing to perform his statutory duty, he has subjected the taxpayers of Cuyahoga County to millions of dollars of potential liability.

Not only is Kasaris allegedly performing the duties of the prosecutorial office illegally, but apparently so are the other 300 assistant county prosecutors who have been appointed by Cuyahoga County prosecutor Mason.

Keith Hurley, chief deputy for the Cuyahoga Clerk of the Courts, advised that there was no oath of office or bond on file for Kasaris nor was there any bond on file for Shirley Strickland Saffold, the presiding judge in the Baumgartner case, or prosecutor Mason.

Hurley says that the oaths of Mason and the judge in the Baumgartner case, Shirley Strickland Saffold, are on file in his court, but not their bonds. With Mason having filed his oath, he’s obviously aware that he’s required to take and file an oath.

So why aren’t there any oaths filed with for his 300 assistants as required by law?

In a response to The North Country Gazette on March 26 about the filing of Saffold’s bond, Mason said a certified copy could be obtained from the Cuyahoga County Clerk of the Courts. That is, of course, had she filed one---but she hasn’t. By operation, she’s vacated the office and has no legal authority to be involuntarily committing Baumgartner or incarcerating her or for that matter, anyone else. According to Ohio Statutes, Saffold is actually impersonating a judge.

According to public record, neither Saffold, nor Mason nor Kasaris have complied with the law. So how and why are they prosecuting Baumgartner for “alleging” that that SHE acted improperly?

The law says that Mason’s responsible for the neglect or misconduct in office of his deputy or clerk. In that Mason presumably appointed Kasaris his assistant, Mason is liable for Kasaris and that creates a huge conflict of interest in the Baumgartner case---in fact, may be enough to dismiss the entire case for governmental wrongdoing.

Section 3.30 of the state code cites that failure to file a bond is a refusal of the office, vacated by operation of law. Any person elected or appointed to an office who is required by law to give a bond or security before performing the duties of the office, who refuses or neglects to give such bond within the time and manner prescribed, fails to qualify for the office and is, by operation of law, deemed to have refused to accept the office to which he was elected or appointed. Such office is considered vacant.

Section 309.11 of the state code requires prosecuting attorneys such as Mason to prepare and file the official bonds for all county officers---which includes his own assistants. Section 309.05 provides for the removal of prosecuting attorneys for willful failure to perform the duties of the office.

Section 3.07 of Ohio Code calls for the forfeiture of the office and creates a charge of misconduct against the officer.

So’s when Mason going to comply with the law. Looks the scandal is in his own backyard.

What a novel approach, expecting the county’s prosecutor and the judge to comply with the law themselves.

According to the public record in the Baumgartner case, not only do Mason, Kasaris and Saffold lack the legal authority to be performing the duties of the office but perhaps it should be them on trial, not Baumgartner.

With the Baumgartner trial looming on the multiple counts of intimidation and falsification lodged against her by Kasaris and Mason who claim that she’s a “paper terrorist” for alleging corruption within the legal system, the public should be taking a hard look at the judge assigned to the Baumgartner case, Shirley Strickland Saffold, who has refused to disqualify herself from the Baumgartner case although some of her acts against Baumgartner have been on the verge of irrational and unconstitutional. Saffold has in the past been known to place the race card when she’s come under fire for some of her actions from the bench.

Mason, Kasaris and Saffold should be seriously scrutinized by disciplinary committees and certainly by the public for Saffold’s alleged use of judicial office for political purposes. Saffold, who is running for reelection this year and faces a Primary challenge on May 2 by former prosecutor Thomas Cahill, is allegedly using an extremely high profile case for her political advantage just days before the primary.

In a highly publicized trial during 2004 before Saffold, prosecuted by Mason’s office and Kasaris, successful gynecologist Dr. Azzam Ahmed was convicted of numerous sexual offenses, allegedly with his patients. Upon appeal, the appellate court reversed and remanded the case for resentencing because the trial court---Saffold---had failed to make the necessary findings to impose maximum sentences and consecutive sentences. She had sentenced the man to 45 years in prison, a virtual death sentence but yet in the same year, sentenced a Raymond Williams, an All-American football player, to mere probation for his role in the killing of a man.

Among numerous issues, Ahmed had argued that Saffold was biased, lacked jurisdiction, prohibited defense counsel from visually displaying excerpts of witnesses’ testimony among other issues.

Judicial bias has been described as “a hostile feeling or spirit of ill will or undue friendship or favoritism towards one of the litigants or his attorney, with the formation of a fixed anticipatory judgment on the part of the judge, as contradistinguished from an open state of mind which will be governed by the law and the facts”.

According to informed sources, when trying to schedule a court date for the resentencing of Ahmed, Saffold has been difficult, maintaining that the only possible day that she could schedule the resentencing hearing would be April 27---five days before the Primary, appearing to be counting on capitalizing on the intense publicity sure to result from the resentencing with giving her a great advantage with the voters.

Saffold, a Democrat like Mason, got some much deserved publicity this past week from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, although some she probably didn’t relish. The Plain Dealer, labeling her with a reputation for being unpredictable and sometimes indiscreet, refused to endorse her for reelection, instead giving the nod to her opponent Thomas Cahill.

Informed sources says that William Mason is Saffold’s “honorary campaign chairman”. Huh? A prosecutor serving as campaign chair for a judge before whom he’s routinely presenting cases? Can you say conflict of interest?

The Cuyahoga prosecutor is acting in a role of allegedly chairing campaigns of judicial candidates and endorsing judicial candidates? The prosecutor is choosing who he wants on the bench and in return the judge rules for the prosecution? Can you say corruption? There is a constitutional right to a fair trial by an impartial judge but if the prosecutor hand picked the judge, where’s the fair trial?

Remember the court definition of judicial bias? How about in the Baumgartner case when she filed a motion for disqualification of Saffold from her case last November, on the grounds that Saffold is biased against her and has had prohibited communications with retired visiting judge Richard Markus, the complaining witness against Baumgartner.

Safford was the presiding judge in Baumgartner's appeal of the revocation of her pharmacy license, ruling that Baumgartner was a mentally impaired pharmacist although there was no evaluation of Baumgartner to support her ruling. Safford has vehemently denied it despite court records.

Saffold tried in December to have Baumgartner declared incompetent, in what appeared to be an attempt to make the whole case go away, even marking the case closed in the Cuyahoga County court docket.

But Baumgartner has been psychologically evaluated at least three times and found competent, the most recent following incarceration and involuntary commitment by Saffold in the state mental hospital over Christmas although state law requires that a person released on bond, as Baumgartner is, be evaluated on an out-patient basis. In revoking Baumgartner’s pharmacy license, Saffold entered her judgment the same day that Markus entered a $175,000 judgment against her in the trial during which he claims Baumgartner intimidated him. In the pharmacy hearing before Saffold, Markus had filed a notice with Saffold against Baumgartner indicating that he had deemed her a vexatious litigator and that Baumgartner was not allowed to represent herself and would need a lawyer. Markus ordered Saffold that if Baumgartner attempted to proceed in appealing the revocation of her pharmacy license that Saffold was to immediately dismiss the case.

"None of what you say is true", Saffold shouted from the bench, in an obvious display of distemper.

But the time stamped copies of documents on file in the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court show otherwise.

When Baumgartner filed to remove Saffold from her case, unbelievably, Kasaris revealed in an official court proceeding, on the record, that his office---Mason’s office—was preparing the Saffold’s response to Baumgartner’s disqualification motion. In essence, the prosecutor served as the personal attorney for the judge, a situation which is strictly prohibited by court rules and rules of judicial misconduct.

The prosecutor’s office and the judge are working hand in hand. How can Saffold even pretend to be the impartial arbiter and how can there be even a smidgeon of a thought that Elsebeth Baumgartner is going to get a fair trial in Cuyahoga County in the courtroom of Shirley Strickland Saffold---that is if Saffold was legally in office.

Ah, but maybe Kasaris, Mason and Saffold have no intent of allowing Baumgartner to go to trial. Maybe that’s what all the intimidation towards Baumgartner is about with Kasaris illegally seizing and keeping her computers, heaping charge after charge after charge against her and then threatening even more charges, hoping that they can try to force her into taking a plea deal. After all, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County is known as one of the most corrupt areas in the nation. Mason and Kasaris have charged Baumgartner with falsification, claiming that she has made false allegations of corruption in the criminal justice system.

Constitutionally, Elsebeth Baumgartner doesn’t have to do a thing. The burden of proof is on the People---on Kasaris and Mason and if they’re claiming that Baumgartner’s allegations of public and political corruption are false, then they have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that her allegations are false.

And we don’t think that Mason or Kasaris, Richard Markus, the Cuyahoga Court system and certainly Chief Justice Thomas Moyer want a prolonged, very public trial in Cuyahoga County about public corruption.

If anyone should be charged with intimidation and retaliation, it’s Mason and Kasaris against Baumgartner, trying to shut her up and put her away, trying to silence her whistleblowing.

As the days go by and more and more is made public about Gov. Taft, Tom Noe, Jim Petro, Betty Montgomery and the others perhaps involved in the Pay to Play scandal which Elsebeth Baumgartner first blew the whistle on as early as 2001, Baumgartner was among the first to point a finger at Noe, Taft and others in Ohio government, state and local, exposing alleged public wrongdoing. The arrest and prosecution of those officials validates her allegations which were made as early as 2001.

Baumgartner’s allegations are being validated without even having to go to trial.

So let’s get back to Saffold. During one court appearance by Baumgartner on the charges for which she faces 109 years in prison, for the exercise of free speech in criticizing the system, Saffold said that she’s never seen a prosecutor obtain an indictment because of criticism of a public official.

Let’s not forget, the first indictment against Baumgartner had to be dismissed because it was found to be forged. And she’s charged that the current indictment is procedurally defective too.

Saffold would be wise to either dismiss all the charges against Baumgartner immediately, with prejudice, or remove herself from the case because she’s lost all credibility and with her alliance with Kasaris and Mason, has a serious ethics problem in addition to perhaps a legal problem.

The Plain Dealer harshly criticized Saffold for “a troubling inability to take responsibility for her errors or shortcomings”. She has certainly demonstrated that in the Baumgartner case.

“In 2003, when a Plain Dealer examination of court operations noted that she routinely assigned dozens of criminal cases to one attorney and authorized him to collect questionable fees, she tried to shift much of the blame to her bailiff. This January, she cited a series of procedural problems that, even if true, could not explain why a foreclosure case assigned to her lingered for eight years”, the Plain Dealer said about Saffold.

Speaking of assigning criminal cases to attorneys, serious questions would have to be raised about the double arraignment of Baumgartner on the newest raft of charges thrown against her by Kasaris, apparently for purposes of harassment and intimidation, this time alleging that she intimidated her business partner in ErieVoices.com, Bryan DuBois and his wife. Of course if one remembers the ErieVoices site, which apparently Kasaris and Mason pressured DuBois to remove from the Internet, there was substantial defamation and intimidation of Baumgartner by posters on the site which were allowed by DuBois while Baumgartner was involuntarily committed at the state hospital by Saffold.. DuBois commented himself against Baumgartner but no charges have been brought against DuBois for his alleged intimidation and retaliation against Baumgartner.

After being indicted on the new charges, she appeared before Saffold on March 27 for arraignment. Baumgartner was released on bond but Saffold then “neglected” to file the proper paperwork for bonding, leaving Baumgartner to sit in jail until the jail warden took action and advised the court that she was being held unlawfully. The capias was then withdrawn and a summons substituted. Baumgartner was then ordered to appear for another arraignment on April 6.

Commons Court Pleas Judge Kilbane Koch who was working the arraignment room declared Baumgartner indigent without any application by Baumgartner for legal aid, told her to be quiet and refused to allow Baumgartner to enter a no contest plea when she, argued that Cuyahoga County lacked jurisdiction because the alleged offenses didn’t occur in Cuyahoga County. In what appeared to be an attempt to control the assignment of her legal counsel, Koch then assigned Jeffrey Kelleher to the case.

According to Baumgartner, Judge Koch said that the record indicated that nothing had occurred on March 27, apparently because Saffold had failed to file the proper paperwork.

Baumgartner was released on a personal recognizance bond although Mason’s office had argued for an additional $25,000 surety bond. Apparently part of the game being exercised by the prosecutor’s office is to string the case out as long as possible in an attempt to cost Baumgartner and her family as much as possible but denying her the constitutional right to proceed pro se. Such a tactic would appear to be a quid pro quo relationship between the attorneys, the court and the prosecutor’s office---also known as stacking the deck.

Mason has one of the highest acquittal rates in the nation. According to published reports, 46% of all indictments secured by Mason and Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office are dismissed. That indicates that the indictments were unlawfully obtained with insufficient evidence. Of course, the Ohio grand jury system leaves a lot to be desired. Unlike New York whereby the defendant must be notified and served notice to appear before the Grand Jury if desired, there is no such requirement in Ohio. The entire Grand Jury proceedings are secret. Prosecutors do not have to disclose under discovery who the witnesses are that testify nor identify the evidence presented to the Grand Jury. And, minutes of the Grand Jury do not have to be disclosed to the defendant unless there’s a particularlized reason. Of course, in the Baumgartner case, Saffold has so far refused to order that the Grand Jury minutes be provided to the defense. Mason on the other hand can obtain the Grand Jury minutes without court order. Is this constitutional?

Of course no defense attorney is going to challenge it because the longer the prosecutors and the court can keep the case going, the more money the defense attorneys make, whether retained or assigned.

Saffold’s actions on the bench are irrational, sentencing Ahmed to 45 years for sexual abuse of patients although admittedly some of the “victims” say they may have consented to the sex.

In 1996, Saffold, then 45, told a female defendant that she should get a better boyfriend that the one she had. “Men are easy. You can go sit in the bus stop, put on a short skirt, corss your legs and pick up 25. Ten of them will give you their money. If you don’t pick up the first 10, then all you got to do is open your legs a little bit and cross them at the bottom”.

In 1998, she scored an F on the annual World AIDS Day Report Card issued by the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund after she ordered Tony Brown, a transgendered sex worker, to publicly disclose his HIV-postive status on local television. So much for privacy rights.

And then there’s the Raymond Williams case, Ohio’s Mr. Football in 2003. He was a Parade Magazine All-American, he led Cleveland’s Benedictine High School to a state championship as a senior and had a football scholarship to West Virginia University.

But two years ago this month, in April, 2004, Williams and two of his teammates attempted to rob an alleged drug dealer who was sitting in his car on a Cleveland street. Williams had a fake handgun and when he pointed it at Rodney Roberts, Roberts pulled a real gun and fired nine shots. Four of them struck one of Williams’ teammates, killing him. Roberts was cleared by a Grand Jury for acting in self defense.

Williams pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery, facing a prison term of up to 20 years.

But no prison time for Williams in Saffold’s court. Despite being involved in causing the death of a 16-year-old boy, Saffold sentenced Williams and his teammate to five years of probation and required that they enroll in college within six months and maintain a C average. If they failed to comply with the conditions, they would be sentenced to three years in prison.

Her rationale? “I don’t believe these young men acted as adults”, she said. “They acted as children”. Part of her reasoning was that the man they tried to rob was an alleged drug dealer so apparently in her mind that justified their behavior. Strange thinking for a judge.

By the way, the prosecutor in the Williams case was Thomas Cahill---her opponent in the May 2 Primary. Cahill has been a prosecutor in Cuyahoga, Lake and Lorain counties. One of Cahill’s key issues in his campaign platform is ending the unscrupulous practice of judges steering assignments to particular attorneys---another one of Baumgartner’s allegations. Whoever wins the Primary is likely to be win the six-year term as there is no Republican candidate.

Another Baumgartner allegation validated.

Saffold has displayed egregious abuses of power in the Baumgartner case in addition to outright bias and prejudice. In November, she revoked the bond of the former attorney and pharmacist for no stated reason after Baumgartner had filed a motion for her disqualification.

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 a Supreme Court stay in place because of the disqualification motion and had left the bench. Court had been adjourned and as Baumgartner was speaking to supporters, 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 and legally was precluded from taking any action against Baumgartner with the Supreme Court stay in effect, Saffold’s bias being the subject of the pending motion. After Baumgartner spent three days in jail, Saffold reinistated her bond.

Bill Mason has one thing right---Ohioans are fed up with the scandals a day. But the scandals aren't limited to the Republicans. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and Mason’s house is crystal clear. 4-22-06

© 2006 North Country Gazette