Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Judge James Celebrezze steered hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work to a friend’s company to resolve bitterly contested divorce cases, The Plain Dealer has found.
In a review of court records, the newspaper discovered that Celebrezze appointed Mark Dottore as a $225-an-hour receiver to handle assets in 11 divorce cases during the last six months of 2008 — netting Dottore Companies more than $340,000.
The judge gave no work to any other receivers during the same period, records show, despite an Ohio Supreme Court rule that such appointments be rotated equitably. And the fees charged by Dottore added tens of thousands of dollars to the legal bills of couples involved in his cases. Celebrezze also took the unusual step of having Dottore, who is not a lawyer, recruit divorce lawyers to serve as unpaid special masters — quasijudicial referees sometimes used to bring warring parties to peace — to help clear dozens of other cases before the judge retired.
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