Filed
4:31 p.m. EDT
08.04.2025
The case now heads to the Ohio Supreme Courtroom. An FBI probe nonetheless looms over Celebrezze and Mark Dottore, after Marshall Venture – Cleveland reporting.
Cuyahoga County Home Relations Decide Leslie Ann Celebrezze admitted in courtroom information to giving profitable receivership work to her longtime good friend, Mark Dottore.
Citing what it calls an in depth sample of misconduct, a state board has really useful a two-year suspension for Cuyahoga County Home Relations Courtroom Decide Leslie Ann Celebrezze.
The report by the Ohio Board of Skilled Conduct states Celebrezze made false statements to fellow judges and state investigators whereas steering work to her longtime good friend, businessman Mark Dottore.
The advice comes two years after The Marshall Venture – Cleveland first started investigating Celebrezze’s relationship with Dottore.
“The general public doesn’t count on nor ought to it, that judges could make false statements … and obtain nothing greater than a reprimand or stayed suspension,” the board wrote in its choice.
“An precise suspension is important to discourage different judges from committing comparable misconduct and make it clear to the general public that this kind of judicial conduct won’t be tolerated.”
One yr of the suspension ought to be eradicated if Celebrezze commits no additional misconduct and pays the prices of the proceedings towards her, the advice acknowledged.
The case now goes to the Ohio Supreme Courtroom. The justices may settle for the advice or impose a extra extreme penalty.
A ruling is probably going months away. Celebrezze’s time period expires in January 2027.
Celebrezze and Dottore didn’t reply to a request for remark. Each stay the main focus of an FBI grand jury investigation, which additionally adopted reporting from The Marshall Venture – Cleveland.
The federal probe is cited within the conduct board’s ruling as Celebrezze’s cause for invoking her Fifth Modification rights and declining to reply questions throughout her disciplinary listening to.
In courtroom papers, Celebrezze requested for a public reprimand after admitting to fifteen violations of judicial {and professional} conduct.
The Ohio Supreme Courtroom’s Workplace of Disciplinary Counsel, which handles civil complaints towards attorneys and judges, requested a one-year suspension, which might be lowered to 6 months with good conduct. The advice was then despatched to the conduct board.
In response, board members wrote that they discovered the counsel’s really useful penalty “not adequate given the extent and nature of the misconduct.”
Its 30-page report goes on to element a number of violations in 4 divorce instances dealt with by the choose, together with improper assignments, undisclosed private relationships and false statements made through the disciplinary course of.
The report facilities on how Celebrezze labored to steer profitable divorce instances to Dottore by manipulating the task of a number of instances to her docket and bypassing the courtroom’s random task course of.
In a number of situations, the report exhibits, Celebrezze both directed assignments to herself or signed false entries stating the instances had been randomly assigned to her. She additionally didn’t disclose her private interactions with different attorneys concerned within the instances she presided over, the report famous.
In some complicated divorce instances, judges appoint receivers to behave as impartial events to regulate a pair’s marital property, together with actual property, money, gear, deposit accounts and companies. The receivers are paid by the divorcing {couples}.
Celebrezze authorised almost $500,000 in charges to Dottore Cos. LLC between January 2017 and June 2023, The Marshall Venture – Cleveland reported. The choose appointed both Dottore or his daughter to be the receiver in six of the eight instances she was dealing with on the time, in accordance with Cuyahoga County courtroom information.
The board stated Celebrezze and Dottore’s relationship would have doubtless gone undetected had Strongsville businessman Jason Jardine not employed a non-public investigator to comply with the choose.
The personal investigator captured Celebrezze on video spending hours at Dottore’s dwelling and workplace on workdays. He additionally captured pictures of the 2 kissing exterior a restaurant.
Celebrezze and Dottore have each denied a romantic relationship.
Jardine stated he turned suspicious of the connection after witnessing the choose and Dottore work together in courtroom. He’s shocked, he stated, that Celebrezze by no means disclosed the connection in courtroom.
“This could have by no means occurred, and it simply didn’t occur to me,” referring to others affected, Jardine informed The Marshall Venture – Cleveland after the board’s choice.
In June, a visiting choose ordered Dottore to repay Jardine and his former spouse a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} for unauthorized bills and overbilling. Dottore has stated he plans to enchantment the ruling.
The board discovered the proof exhibits greater than a “shut private” friendship between Celebrezze and Dottore.
For instance, information present she consulted with two attorneys a few divorce from her husband. She additionally informed different judges she was in love with Dottore. Telephone information present the duo spent over 300 hours on the telephone in a single yr.
“Whether or not the 2 had an precise sexual relationship, romantic relationship, or deeply emotional relationship doesn’t matter,” the ruling stated.
“It’s the impact of the looks of that relationship to the events and the general public that undermines the boldness within the choice making of the choose.”
