Imperial Murders Activist Kathy Wray Coleman Released From Jail After Being Arrested, Kidnapped And Held A Political Prisoner

Submitted by JournalistKathy... on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 13:14.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland, Oh. of Anthony Sowell where the gruesome remains of 11 Black women were found on Halloween Day in 2009.
Alleged Serial Murderer Anthony Sowell .

From the Metro Desk of The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

Community Activist and longtime journalist Kathy Wray Coleman has been released from jail after a 10 day ordeal where she says she was arrested, kidnapped and held captive as a political prisoner for her journalistic writings and activism, and for leading a rally June 22 of last month on the sidewlk outside of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center around The Imperial Ave. Murders and violence against women issues.

Several grassroots groups and community leaders attended the rally, which was sponsored by The Imperial Women, including representatives from the office of Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (D-11), Community Activist Art McKoy of Black on Black Crime Inc., greater Cleveland's Women's Center Executive Director Mary Jane Chichester, and Cleveland City Councilpersons Mamie Mitchell and Kevin Conwell, chair of City Council's safety committee. 

 
The Anthony Sowell Capital Murder Trial, which includes aggravated murder charges as to the murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland, is underway with the prosecution presenting its case. It is expected to last at least a month, with more than 132 witnesses slated to testify, including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and the mayor's niece, Lori Frazier, who took the stand and testified last week against Sowell. She told the 12-member predominantly White jury that she saw the blood gushing from Sowell's head, and the bruises on him, but for one moment did not believe that he had killed anyone, more less a repertoire of Black women, even when he said to her that "you do not have to worry about them bothering you anymore because I killed their ass."
 
Sowell's attorneys tried to discredit her testimony with her previous drug addiction.
 
Frazier testified, at one point in tears, that while nursing her crack cocaine addiiction Sowell, a former marine who served 15 years in prison for attempted rape before they met in 2005 when she was on an alcohol binge, turned to the drug himself, and went from fun loving to a man obviously hostile and rattled. She moved out of his home in 2007, but kept in touch periodically, and the remains of the murdered women where announced by city officials beginning on Halloween Day in 2009.
 
A recovering crack cocaine addict who says she has now been clean since 2007, Frazier lived with Sowell, romantically, and during the time of some of the 11 murders that have rocked the predominantly Black City of Cleveland, a controversial town with some 400,000 residents where Black leaders can shine, and one that has been a political stomping  ground for presidential wannabes. It's claim to fame for the old Black political guard is having elected the first Black mayor of a major metropolitan city, and that was the late Carl B. Stokes, the brother of former Ohio Congressman Louis Stokes of Shaker Hts.
 
A mulatto born to a Black man and an Italian woman who grew up on the East Side of the city in Cleveland's impoverished Central  Area and served  as councilman of Cleveland's Ward 5  before becoming mayor,  Jackson was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and won a second mayoral  term in Nov 2009, less than a week before the announcement of the discovery of the  remains of the 11  Black murdered women of Imperial Ave. 
 
Coleman was the only person arrested at the June 22 rally, which focused on demands for accountability by Jackson's all non-Black top level law enforcement leadership team of the chief of police, chief prosecutor, safety director and law director, changes in internal  police procedures, and the adoption by Cleveland City Council of public policy changes via ordinances relative to missing persons, rape and murder around The Imperial Ave. Murders. Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Lynn McLaughlin Murray, whom activists say is corrupt, issued a warrant that day without the bond forfeiture hearing required before issuing any warrant in that instance and though Coleman had not missed any timely or legally scheduled hearing, though the judge had sought her attendance on May 11, 2011 via no notice and within two days, a hearing really to interrogate her for her transcripts of the resisting arrest trial proceedings of 2009.
 
Various mainstream media, including  MSNBC national cable news and Cleveland's New Channel 5 Paul Kiska, falsely reported that McLaughlin Murray had previously issued the warrant rather than on the day of last week's rally as the case docket denotes, and would not report that before a warrant can be issued when a bond is had, a bond forfeiture hearing is required to determine if the absence from court was legitimate, a process being denied to Blacks in the Cleveland Municipal Court. Kiska and MSNBC also falsely reported that Coleman skipped a sentencing hearing allegedly scheduled by McLaughlin Murray in May 2011, here again a statement without the adequate journalistic investigation necessary to seek the facts and to perpetuate truth.
 
McLaughlin Murray sought to sentence Coleman saying she resisted an illegal arrest by Cuyahoga County Deputy Sheriff Gerald Pace at the county justice center in 2008, one setup by Cuyahoga County Judges Timothy McGinty and John O'Donnell allegedly because Coleman was investigating mortgage fraud by Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judges and magistrates and other county officials and had written articles published by the Call and Post of alleged housing discrimination against Blacks in Shaker Hts. O'Donnell had lured Coleman to his courtroom the day in August of 2008 as to Pace's arrest of Coleman relative to a hearing on an unrelated civil lawsuit filed by by the journalist, and Coleman says that O'Donnell will not let up because he is involved in mortgage fraud activities with Chase Home Finance Mortgage Company, area law firms and other mortgage companies,  to the detriment of the community, the Black community in particular.
 
The catch, however, is that in spite of a Cleveland Municipal Court jury finding of Coleman of resisting Pace's arrest following the two-day trial before then Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough in May 2009, Pace, a seasoned deputy sheriff for Cuyahoga County, Ohio's largest county out of 88,  did not then and still has not today accused Coleman of resisting his 2008 arrest, meaning the 2009 jury verdict of resisting arrest was previously fixed and that McLaughlin Murray's role was to further fix the case by illegally sentencing Coleman, says Coleman, in exchange for a pending endorsement from Mayor Jackson for her bid this Nov. to hold on to her judicial seat.
 
Keough, who presided originally over the case, and whom McLaughlin Murray replaced in Jan. via an appointment by outgoing Democratic Gov Ted Strickland to complete her unexpired six-year term that ends this year, had allegedly fixed the case by bringing in somebody to testify for Pace in violation of The Ohio Rules of Evidence, and by doing a host of other illegal activity during the two-day trial that drew community activists and curious  assistant prosecutors.
 
According to Coleman, Keough's impropriety was unprecedented and includes allegedly acting as both judge and prosecutor at trial, having backroom discussions with prosecutors and Coleman's paid defense counsel, tainting the jury, telling jurors to ask questions during trial for the prosecution, and telling the jury members via illegal jury instructions to convict Coleman of resisting arrest. All this in part in exchange for Jackson's endorsement, Coleman claims, and one that helped Keough win a seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals last year after she barely won a May, 2010  Democratic primary election against Cuyahoga County Judge Ron Suster, whom the Call and Post endorsed over her. 
 
Coleman was exonerated by the 12-member jury of a host of all other City of Cleveland charges relative to that 2009 resisting arrest trial before Keough including charges that she was disorderly and not sick when she fell ill upon the malicious arrest and was rushed to the hospital by ambulance, charges the activist and community journalist had branded as "trumped up, retaliatory and anti-free speech and frivolous misdemeanors." She says the charges were retaliation for her writings in the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's Black press, and otherwise, and because of her activism via the Imperial Women and with other activist groups like Black on Black Crime for a state law for Ohio trial court judges to be assigned at random and not handpicked for case assignments by fellow judges.
 
Coleman had not been sentenced because her attorney, Sandra Harding, had asked McLaughlin Murray for a post verdict acquittal hearing to seek dismissal of the unjust and unconstitutional resisting arrest verdict, a hearing that Coleman says now was not even contemplated because it would have exposed Keough's case fixing activity for Jackson, Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi, Cleveland Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez, area judges and other members of the embattled Cuyahoga County Democratic Party where at least 50 people have pleaded guilty to corruption related charges.
 
Two former Common Pleas Court judges, Bridget McCafferty and Steven Terry, were convicted earlier this year by a federal court jury of corruption in office around alleged case fixing activity, though neither has been sentenced and both vow to appeal. And former county auditor Frank Russo, convicted last year of crimes in office and facing 22-years in prison after he stops snitching, has fallen into disrepute as has former county Democratic Party chair Jimmy Dimora, a former county commissioner before voters in 2009 scrapped the three member-board of commissioners form of government for a county executive and 11-member County Council who is facing at least 28 criminal charges of political corruption including racketeering for allegedly running a mob operation.
 
After Coleman was jailed in Cleveland last week and at its workhouse in Highland Hills McLaughlin Murray had her brought to her courtroom on Tue in handcuffs and a jumpsuit to demean the journalist with two master's degrees and straight A's as a doctoral student at The University of Akron. And the judge knew that the right thing to do was to throw out the crafted jury verdict of 2009 because Coleman had been denied her right to confront Pace per the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment, even though he had not accused her of resisting arrest or any other crime.
 
The judge instead demanded, before the community activists at the hearing that had protested against her at the justice center that morning in support of Coleman, deputy bailiffs and other court officials, that Coleman answer her question on whether she has certified copies of the trial transcripts that show that Keough fixed the resisting arrest case in 2009, though the activist said she did not know since she had been jailed and her home had been burglarized three times for the Keough "Pelican Brief-Type Briefs."
 
The judge then sentenced Coleman on the illegal resisting arrest verdict issued in 2009 to time served since her arrest June 22, 2011 at the justice center rally and said that "this is over," though Harding has vowed to appeal the verdict and Coleman says that community activists will continue their push to rid the bench of McLaughlin Murray by urging voters in Nov to vote for her opponent, Assistant County Prosecutor Pinkey Carr, who is a Black Democrat.
 
Carr lives in Cleveland's Lee-Harvard area, and is, by design, due to her talent and proecutorial ingenuousness, one of the prosecutors in the Sowell Capital Murder Case. Only a general election in Nov will be held for judicial elections on The Cleveland Municipal Court bench. 
 
McLaughlin Murray then had Middleburg Hts police pick Coleman up, hoping to keep her in jail during the Sowell trial, allegedly at Jackson's request. But Coleman was released from the Middleburg Hts Jail on Friday, after posting a bail set Wed by Berea Municipal Court employees on behalf of a retired 68-year-old visiting Berea Municipal Court judge from Barberton, Oh. on a $15,000 bond, though a previous bond of $6,000 is still pending, meaning that detaining the activist in jail there for three days while a bond is pending is false imprisonment and kidnapping, Coleman says.
 
The City of Middleburg Hts, via complaint from a suspect Middleburg Hts police officer dubbed Lt. Hoover, charged Coleman on Oct. 31, 2009 with misdemeanor obstruction of official business, and days before she led a protest at the county justice center on Nov 10, 2009 over malfeasance around The Imperial Ave. Murders. Hoover, who setup the illegal sting, is accusing Coleman of allegedly failing to give her name as a passenger in a car, though denied by the activist and not required even had she done so as alleged.
 
The Middleburg Hts. case unraveled when on On Oct 30, 2009 Coleman's lawyer in an unrelated civil lawsuit case allegedly lured her to Middleburg Hts and called police to get her arrested to try to stop a rally she led at the Nov 10, 2009 Justice Center rally, though Coleman posted bond then of $120 and was released from custody the morning after the arrest, on Oct., 31, 2009. She is also accused of an unlawful lane change, a traffic citation that she also denies, though police found the attorney behind the stirring wheel of the car with an expired license and drove him home while arresting the Black journalist and allegedly interrogating her on her activism and writings. 
 
That attorney, Wayne L. Kerek, who lived in Strongsville at the time and practices regularly in the Berea Municipal Court where Middleburg Hts cases are heard, and whom Coleman says told her that Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock was behind his effort at having his own client arrested in Middleburg Hts in 2009, has since been suspended from the practice of law. In that case Coleman has had no arraignment, made no plea, been afforded no jury trial and has been virtually treated like a slave, though Berea Municipal Court has no jurisdiction because by city ordinance the case was to have originated in the Middleburg Hts Mayor's Court.
 
Comstock, who allegedly helped to set up the Coleman traffic case scandal and who has been replaced with a visiting judge relative to the Middleburg Hts. matter for allegedly harassing Coleman, is still harassing her with the visiting judges, Coleman said. Though Middleburg Hts cases are only to be heard in The Berea Municipal Court if a defendant pleads not guilty in The Middleburg Hts Mayor's Court and a plea agreement is not reached. Comstock, says Coleman, is illegally usurping the jurisdiction of The Middleburg Hts. Mayors' Court. And, says Coleman, he is doing it with the sanctioning of racist Middleburg Heights City Prosecutor Peter Hull,  a vicious prosecutor who says that Blacks have no constitutional  right to jury trials, by permitting police to skip the mayor's court and bring cases directly to him if he has it in for a person that might be Black, a woman, or just somebody he has been asked to target for a malicious prosecution.
 
Comstock allegedly told Coleman that she and other activists better stop pushing for the pending bill, proposed by State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10), for Ohio trial court judges to be at all times assigned to cases by random draw rather that sometimes handpicked to fix cases to the detriment of Blacks, women, and other members of a protected class as framed under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In turn, Coleman said that the fight to reform Ohio's legal system for the betterment of the community will continue no matter how many times she is falsely imprisoned in violation of her constitutional and statutory rights, particularly since Black women and men are disproportionately impacted by what she calls a flawed and racist legal system.
 
"I want to thank each and every person from the bottom of my heart that helped to secure my release from jail, even if it was just a kind word or two, after I was arrested, kidnapped and held captive in an attempt to stop rallies around The Imperial Ave Murders and to chill free speech and what I have learned as a journalist since 1993, including more than 15 years as a freelance journalist with the Call and Post Newspapers before becoming the publisher and the editor of The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.com," said Coleman. "You can read my story around the arrest and captivity in an upcoming five-part series titled 'Jailed Activist Tells Her Story: A Five Part Series On The Jailing Of Activist And Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman As To The Imperial Ave Murders, Women's Issues, And Legal System Malfeasance Against Blacks And Others."
 
Journalist and Community Activist Kathy Wray Coleman can be reached at 216-932-3114 and ktcoleman8 [at] aol [dot] com.
 
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Posted By Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman to THE KATHY WRAY COLEMAN ONLINE NEWS BLOG.COM at 7/04/2011  
 

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Reform the System

Submitted by lmcshane on Sun, 07/03/2011 - 08:52.

Comstock allegedly told Coleman that she and other activists better stop pushing for the pending bill, proposed by State Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10), for Ohio trial court judges to be at all times assigned to cases by random draw rather that sometimes handpicked to fix cases to the detriment of Blacks. women and others. In turn, Coleman said that the fight to reform Ohio's legal system for the betterment of the community will continue no matter how many times she is falsely imprisoned in violation of her constitutional and statutory rights, particularly since Black women and men are disproportionately impacted by what she calls a flawed and racist legal system.

Thank you Kathy--your work is getting attention here.  I am sorry for the indignities you have endured.  When it comes to civil rights and free speech, we are sadly going backwards.

Thank you for your support

Submitted by JournalistKathy... on Sun, 07/03/2011 - 12:19.

Thank you for your support and that that I have received here from www.RealNeo.Us, a respected site. And we might argue and fight sometimes, but we have a common agenda, Betty, and Lily too, of seeking equal opportunity and equal justice foe all people--The struggle continues--Kathy Wray Coleman