Democratic Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock

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

Visiting Berea Municipal Court Judge Mary Grace Trimboli of Toledo, Oh. has quit the case she was assigned to relative to the malicious prosecution of community activist and journalist Kathy Wray Coleman because of prejudice and because she is not a retired judge permitted to be assigned as a visiting judge under the Ohio Constitution. 

"Good riddance and that explains her harassment of me that she shall be held accountable for in a court of competent jurisdiction," said Coleman. "And we want this impersonating woman investigated, prosecuted and jailed for being an obvious fraud sent from Toledo to target Blacks, activists and politicians in a malicious fashion."

Last month the Ohio House passed a proposed constitutional amendment that would raise the age of an elected judge from 70 to 75, and if it passes the Senate it would go on the Nov. ballot. Still, though, retired judges of any age can serve as judges on special assignments. The average age of Ohio's 721 statewide judges is 57, data show. 

"She is recusing herself from the case," said Coleman's attorney, Stephen L. Miles, of Trimboli.

The Imperial Women and other activist groups want a constitutional amendment and state law requiring that Ohio's trial court judges are sitting judges assigned to cases by random draw. The activists planned a protest before a previously scheduled trial of journalist Coleman, who leads The Imperial Women, and of whom activists say is being harassed and maliciously prosecuted around her writings, the Imperial Ave. Murders, and the their push for judicial reform.But the trial was canceled after it was learned of the protest. Trimboli, 57, who is neither a retired nor current judge but is illegally posing as one and was on the Toledo Municipal Court bench last in 2005 at age 51 and did not seek reelection.

Coleman is charged with a traffic citation and misdemeanor obstruction of official business allegedly for weaving and not giving her name to Middleburg Hts police on Oct 30, 2009 after they pulled the car over, though she was a passenger and her then attorney Wayne Kerek was in the driver's seat with an expired driver's license and did not even get cited. Middleburg Hts misdemeanor cases that have a traffic citation attached to them that leave the mayor's court after not guilty pleas are taken, are by statute heard in the Berea Municipal Court.

 Coleman said that Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock snatched the case before it could go to the mayor's court because Middleburg Hts Mayor Gary Starr is friends with Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, whose Chief Operating Officer Darnell Brown chairs the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Board that Starr is also a 17-year member of, where he represents about 39 small cities, including his own. Jackson, she says, is upset with the Imperial Women for protesting in front of his home for an investigation around the murders and for questioning the fact that he is a Black mayor and has appointed no Blacks or women as law director, safety director, chief of police, chief prosecutor of ems commissioner in a majority Black major metropolitan city.

Activists say the insensitivity of Jackson's all non Black law enforcement leadership team contributed to the fiasco around the murders including the release of Sowell from police custody on an attempted rape complaint in 2008 so that he could then go allegedly murder the last six of the 11 Black women.

According to Coleman, when she moved to dismiss the case before Comstock for a lack of jurisdiction because it belonged in the mayor's court, he stole her bond without a bond forfeiture hearing, issued a warrant and then falsified public records and lied to say she had an arraignment and a pretrial, and had made a plea. She said she was arrested last July with Jackson's help and hauled before Comstock and that he threatened her saying he objected to the activists wanting judges assigned at random because they should be handpicked at the Ohio Supreme Court level and elsewhere and that she could do nothing about it. He then withdrew and former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Brown illegally appointed Trimboli.

Brown was appointed last May to replace Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who died unexpectedly in April, but lost by an embarrassing 68 percent of the vote in Nov. to now Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor.