Cuyahoga County Home Relations Decide Leslie Ann Celebrezze resigned Monday after being charged with tampering with public data for funneling work in her courtroom to Mark Dottore, her longtime pal whom she’d repeatedly appointed to supervise profitable divorce instances.
Celebrezze was charged by means of info — a course of that always indicators a defendant intends to plead responsible — and can be arraigned in felony courtroom on Tuesday. The emptiness on the Home Relations Court docket created by her resignation can be stuffed by the governor.
The third-degree felony cost, which carries a possible jail time period of as much as three years, comes greater than two years after The Marshall Undertaking – Cleveland first detailed Celebrezze’s relationship with Dottore. She has since confronted disciplinary motion from the Ohio Board of Skilled Conduct, in addition to a separate ongoing felony investigation by the FBI.
In 2023, The Marshall Undertaking – Cleveland additionally reported that Celebrezze, the executive choose on the time, directed case assignments to herself however acknowledged in courtroom entries the instances had been randomly assigned to her.
“Integrity on the bench is just not optionally available,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley stated in an announcement on Monday. “Something much less erodes the muse of our courts and our justice system.”
O’Malley’s assertion stated Celebrezze filed a case be aware on Jan. 19, 2023, that contained false info that she had been randomly assigned to a case. As a substitute, she had manually assigned herself the case.
Celebrezze’s lawyer, Ian Friendman, requested the general public to not choose Celebrezze on one single act.
“The choose has achieved a lot good for therefore many by dedicating her complete skilled life to public service,” Friedman wrote in an announcement. “We are going to paint her full life’s work within the courtroom on the applicable time.”
Dottore didn’t reply to a request for remark.
In some complicated divorce instances, judges appoint receivers to behave as impartial events to manage a pair’s marital belongings, together with actual property, money, gear, deposit accounts and companies. The receivers are paid by the divorcing {couples}.
Celebrezze accredited practically $500,000 in charges to Dottore Cos. LLC between January 2017 and June 2023, The Marshall Undertaking – Cleveland reported. The choose appointed both Dottore or his daughter to be the receiver in six instances she dealt with throughout that point, based on Cuyahoga County courtroom data.
Cassandra Robertson, the director on the Heart for Skilled Ethics at Case Western Reserve College College of Regulation, stated acts from dishonest judges taint all judges.
“Any type of corruption or abuse of energy is totally horrible for the judicial department,” Robertson stated. “It’s exhausting to advertise belief within the judicial system when judges interact in felony acts. It destroys a number of belief.”
Celebrezze, who’s married, has conceded in courtroom data that she beloved Dottore when she bypassed the courtroom’s random project course of to shift instances to her docket and subsequently appointed Dottore as a receiver.
Dottore is a well known, profitable businessman who has endeared himself to a number of judges and courts round Northeast Ohio. He additionally served as marketing campaign treasurer when Celebrezze ran efficiently for her judgeship in 2008. Her marketing campaign headquarters was listed below Dottore’s enterprise handle. Celebrezze took workplace in 2009 after voters elected her to exchange her father, who had served practically 20 years on the Home Relations Court docket and two years on the Ohio Supreme Court docket.
On Dec. 9, the Cuyahoga County Council accredited a $400,000 settlement with former worker Georgeanna Semary, who accused the choose of witness intimidation and retaliation after Semary offered The Marshall Undertaking – Cleveland with billing invoices involving Dottore. That’s on prime of $250,000 the county paid in 2024 to cowl Semary’s authorized charges.
Celebrezze can be ready to learn the way the Ohio Supreme Court docket will self-discipline her for funneling work to Dottore. A state board in August known as her actions an in depth sample of misconduct and beneficial a two-year suspension.
A report by the Ohio Board of Skilled Conduct states Celebrezze made false statements to fellow judges and state investigators whereas steering work to Dottore. She additionally didn’t disclose her private interactions with different attorneys concerned within the instances she presided over.
Had she not resigned, her time period on the bench would have expired in 2027.
