When a Judge Gets Charged With a Felony: 

To Watch the Complete Video, Go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU9hoOuSstw

For years, I was told the same thing many people are told when they question what happens inside Cuyahoga County DR Court:
“You’re just a bitter ex-husband / wife.”
“You’re angry because divorce is emotional.”

That narrative is very convenient to this court. It dismisses the concerns of the people inside the system and protects the institution and corruption around it. But facts matter, and one fact can’t be ignored.

Former Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze, the administrative judge of the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court, was criminally charged with a felony and later pleaded guilty to tampering with records after filing a fraudulent journal entry regarding case assignment. The FBI investigation proved it.

According to prosecutors, the judge falsely how she got control of a case that was not assigned to her. This is not speculation. This is a matter of public record and it matters.

Why This Matters to Your Case

For years during my divorce proceedings, I raised concerns about what I believed were irregularities and conflicts within my case. Those concerns were dismissed. When someone challenges a court system, the easiest way to discredit them is simple: portray them as emotional, irrational, or angry. But the arrest and felony conviction of the very judge presiding over my case raises an obvious and unavoidable question:

If nothing was wrong, why was the DR Judge arrested by the FBI ? If your in this DR court, that question deserves to be asked in your case too. Just by reading the docket in other cases I can tell this inappropriateness and or corruption is still fully alive. 

The Structure of the Domestic Relations System

Divorce cases are some of the most financially and emotionally vulnerable moments in a person’s life and the Judges and Attorney’s know this fact more than anyone involved.

In Cuyahoga County, the Domestic Relations Court has enormous power over:

• Businesses
• Homes
• Retirement accounts
• Custody decisions
• Family assets accumulated over decades

Even if your case is NOT complex, this County DR Court will make assumptions and allow it to become complex. Therefore, it is necessary to hire and make you pay for appointed receivers, guardians, mediators, phycologists and many other third parties to manage YOU during litigation. Almost always these “third parties” are the Courts “friends” and are the same ones always hired repeatedly. 

Investigations and court disciplinary findings revealed that Judge Celebrezze had approved hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees to a longtime court associate serving as a “receiver” in multiple cases. Turns out they were more than friends, they were lovers even though the Judge was married. These are not minor procedural issues. They go directly to the integrity of how decisions are made and who benefits from them.

The Reality Many Litigants Experience

Anyone who has spent time in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court understands how exhausting the process can be. Motions are filed. Hearings are delayed. Costs accumulate. Years pass.

Families spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars navigating a corrupt, lazy system they cannot control and this makes the attorneys extremely motivated to spend the time to take control and so they do. In here litigants feel like they are being pulled through a process they don’t understand and cannot influence and by the time a final decision is made, the financial and emotional damage is already done. Mission accomplished and they believe you deserved it !

Why This Website Exists

This website exists for one reason:

Transparency and motivation to fix this broken and corrupt county court. The public deserves to know what happened in cases like mine and FIVE other ones the Ohio Supreme Court discover in their investigation in this specific court. The integrity of the judicial process matters and it is very lacking in Cuyahoga County DR Court.

The arrest and felony conviction of a judge is not a normal event. It is rare. Judges hold enormous authority over people’s lives, businesses, and families. With that authority comes the expectation of the highest ethical standards which is also rare in this courthouse.

When those standards are violated, it is not simply a personal scandal. It raises broader questions about how the system and its “friends” operate. 

A Warning to Others Entering the System

If you are entering a divorce case in Cuyahoga County or anywhere else, understand one thing clearly: 

The court system is powerful.

It controls timelines. It controls decisions. It controls outcomes that may affect the rest of your life. Ask questions. Document everything. Understand where your money is going. Understand how your case is being handled. Blind trust in any system—especially one with so much power and corruption —is not a strategy.

The Bigger Issue

This story was never just about my divorce. It is about accountability.

When a judge is charged with a felony related to actions taken while serving on the bench, it forces the public to confront uncomfortable questions.

Questions about oversight. Questions about transparency.
Questions about how many other litigants experienced similar situations but never had the resources or persistence to challenge them.

Final Thought

For years, people could dismiss my concerns as frustration from a litigant in a difficult divorce. I was NOT going to settle for that and fortunately the facts I gathered eventually speak for themselves. Two Judges presiding over my case were investigated and one was charged with a felony involving the integrity of court records. That is not opinion. That is history! The Judges do not LIKE this website and how I define them as part of the problem but, in the end the buck stops with them and they have the power and authority to STOP the nonsense but, for some reason they continue to allow for it and in a lot of situations they are the cause of it.  I define that as corruption and the public deserves to understand what that means.