Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Bob Reid

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason

From the Metro Desk of the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com and Cleveland Urban News.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinnewsblog.com)

Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judges John O'Donnell and Timothy McGinty, and Foreclosure Chief Magistrate Stephen Bucha are accused of threatening an attorney with criminal sanctions if he did not file documents in foreclosure cases involving Blacks as a suspended attorney so that O'Donnell could then strike them from the record to help non-existent mortgage companies foreclose on homes when they do not own the mortgage note, and McGinty allegedly had him file notices of appeal, in an effort to stop his orders dismissing cases from being overturned by the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals. McGinty allegedly hopes the appeal would be dismissed because it was filed by the suspended attorney, though appellate courts have the authority to permit amended notices of appeals.

"They told me that Chief Cuyahoga County Judge Nancy Fuerst had told them my law license had been suspended because I need to complete continuing education courses and I did not know it and they said I would be prosecuted criminally because I had proceeded with other cases under suspension unless I filed documents to hurt certain people so that Judge O'Donnell and others could strike them to help the mortgage companies," said the attorney. “And Judge McGinty had me do it to try to stop an appeal that he thought he would lose on."

The attorney said also that Ohio Supreme Court officials agreed not to initially put the suspension on the online case docket so that his clients would not know that he was suspended.

At issue in part is O'Donnell's removal two weeks ago of Bucha on cases involving the no longer existing Chase Mortgage Company with subordinate magistrate Tom Vozar following the initiation of a mortgage fraud investigation two weeks earlier by county prosecutor Bill Mason, though O'Donnell has not recused himself from the cases since he supervises Bucha and allegedly directed him on the alleged illegal activity.

Chase Mortgage Company, which merged and became Chase Home Finance in 2005, is foreclosing on homes of Black people illegally since it no longer owns the mortgage notes, and with O'Donnell and Bucha's help, records reveal. In 2009 the Ohio Supreme Court in Wells Fargo Bank vs. Jordan refused to hear an appeal and let stand a decision by the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals that says that foreclosure plaintiffs that did not own the note when the foreclosure litigation was initiated cannot simply substitute parties and that the cases must be dismissed and refiled with the new mortgage company as the plaintiff. The decision also notes that mortgage companies that no longer own the mortgage note for any reason including because the mortgage company has changed hands via either a buyout or merger lack standing to foreclose and that Ohio trial court judges thus lack jurisdiction to proceed and must dismiss the cases, a decision that O'Donnell obviously seeks to unethically ignore to help rich and corrupt mortgage companies, and the attorney at issue said he wanted him to file documents in those cases as a suspended attorney so that he could strike them to help the mortgage company possibly win. 

O'Donnell, however, might not get away with what he is accused of doing because the Ohio Judicial Code of Conduct requires that a judge must act if he or she has knowledge of rule violations and other illegalities regardless of whether documents that contain evidence of the illegal activity are stricken by the judge.  Also, the Ohio Supreme Court, and not O'Donnell, has exclusive jurisdiction or authority over any unauthorized practice of law and O'Donnell is acting unethically in striking documents simply because an attorney cannot practice allegedly until he or she completes continuing legal education requirements. O'Donnell's  venue is thus a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Ohio Supreme Court against the suspended attorney.

Though O'Donnell has replaced Bucha in particular foreclosure cases, an indication, some say, of wrong doing, he still refuses to dismiss the foreclosure cases as required by law where he has no jurisdiction to hear them since Chase Mortgage Company no longer exist, lacks standing to litigate foreclosures because Chase Home Finance and not it owns or holds the mortgage notes, and is essentially dead.

Records show that 'Donnell and Bucha are aware that Cuyahoga County Sheriff Bob Reid is deflating home values for foreclosures by 60 percent so that mortgage companies and politically connected people can buy them at an illegally reduced price and then slap the former homeowner with the bill. Data also show that he is not doing interior inspections as required by state law on homes of Black people and others slated for foreclosure sale. The suspended attorney at issue said that O'Donnell made him via threats of criminal prosecution represent the Black homeowners complaining about a lack of interior appraisals, deflated home values for foreclosure sales, and no standing to sue by non-existent Chase Mortgage Company so that he could then strike his filings from the record.

Civil Rule 60 B of the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure permits a motion to the trial court for relief from judgment from judges such as O'Donnell and McGinty to reverse an order or judgment that, among other reasons, is a byproduct of fraud, including when suspended attorneys illegally file documents at the direction of judges and others in cases to hurt their clients to help mortgage companies and other plaintiffs win. How the motion might impact an appeal is now quite known, though new case law could be made as to the filing of notices  of appeal by a suspended attorney, allegedly at McGinty's direction, in hopes of a dismissal to preclude a reversal of the judges erroneous trial court orders dismissing meritorious cases. 

In the past three years McGinty has had at least two cases overturned for an abuse of discretion by three-judge panels of the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals. He is allegedly slated to retire and to run next year for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor where Mason is not expected to seek reelection.

One case overturned on appeal was where McGinty ordered the son of a Black community activist to prison for allegedly violating probation when the state appellate court said in its decision last year that the probation period was up. The judge was also a source to the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper, handing reporters documents on Black and other defendants before him, including alleged serial killer Anthony Sowell, though he recused himself from the Sowell capital murder case after the media exposed him.

The Sowell case, which is premised on the murders of 11 Black women at his home on Imperial Ave. in Cleveland, is set for trial on June 6. It is now before Cuyahoga County Judge Dick Ambrose, a former Cleveland Browns football player and one of few respected judges of the 34-member general division of the Cuyahaoga County Court of Common Pleas.