Cuyahoga County Community Based Prosecution Unit
produces positive results in West Side neighborhoods
by Joe Narkin

(Plain Press, August 2008) Bob Shores, the Safety and Outreach Coordinator for Ohio City Near West Development Corporation (OCNW), is well aware of how crime, both major and minor, creates “a climate of fear and anxiety, and greatly impairs the quality of life” for citizens on the West Side of Cleveland. “We feel beat down in this community; the criminals are gaining on us,” said Shores.

Despite what could appear, at first blush, to be a bleak appraisal of the local crime situation, Shores is quite optimistic that the tide is beginning to turn for the better due to the work of two Cuyahoga County community-based prosecutors that have been assigned to aggressively prosecute crimes “of concern to the community” on the west side.

County Prosecutor Bill Mason created the Cuyahoga County Community Based Prosecution Unit about five years ago “to ensure that communities know what is going on with defendants as they proceed through the criminal justice system” and “to shine a bright light on defendants’ criminal cases, so they do not get lost among the thousands of criminals prosecuted each year.” The Community Based Prosecution Unit was initially awarded federal funding as a demonstration project for 18 months and, based upon its success, was incorporated as a permanent project of the Prosecutor’s Office.

Under the Community Based Prosecution Unit, Mason has assigned a designated prosecuting attorney to each police district within the City of Cleveland, as well as in the City of East Cleveland. There are current plans to expand the program to inner ring suburbs throughout Cuyahoga County. On the west side, Kevin Filiatraut has been has been assigned to the 1st District and Colleen Reali works within the 2nd District. Community Based Prosecutors “give communities a voice,” said Mason, “they work with residents to improve the overall quality of life.”

Rick Bell, supervisor of the Community Based Prosecution Unit, says that, under the Ohio Revised Code, “prosecutors are law enforcement officers” and the community based unit allows prosecuting attorneys to better fulfill this role by working very closely with police officers and the citizens that they protect. Whenever possible, community based prosecutors live in the districts to which they are assigned, thereby giving them greater insight into the impact of crime on the communities that they serve, according to Bell. Prosecutors Reali and Filiatraut live in their areas of assignment. By the strong stand that they take in both the community and the courtroom, the Prosecutors Office can “let the community know that we care, that we are there” and that “they have access to us,” said Bell.

Community based prosecutors must have multiple talents. They must be excellent communicators who understand the language of both the street and the courtroom. They must be excellent litigators who are capable of prosecuting all levels of crime - from lower level felonies to major crimes. County Prosecutors can act as the lead attorney in all types of felony-level criminal cases, except in cases of homicide where they can still take the “second chair” as co-council, said Bell. They must be both compassionate and unequivocally tough in prosecuting cases in which incarceration is warranted in order to best protect public safety and quality of life.

Cases are brought to the attention of community based prosecutors in any number of ways, including direct public input about crimes that are of specific concern to the community. Many crimes, however, especially lower level felonies, can escape public attention. The Community Based Prosecution Unit has a mechanism for identifying crimes that might tend to be overlooked under normal circumstances and to analyze them closely for patterns and community impact. Nicole DiSanto, Community Outreach Specialist with the Prosecutor’s Office, is charged with reviewing all arrest reports generated on the west side of Cleveland on a daily basis in order to assist prosecutors in selecting crimes to be prosecuted by the unit. 

Violent crimes are, of course, a special concern for communities. Bob Shore of OCNW equates the impact of violent criminals to that of terrorists who “create an atmosphere of fear in our community.” If one defines terrorism as the creation of widespread fear, absent the specific sole intent to induce fear, Shore is correct. He cites the aggravated robbery of Ohio City Pizza on October 25 2007 as a particularly fear inducing case. In this highly publicized case, Kirkland Peterson, 17 years old at the time of the crime, and Tyrone Ballou, 20, robbed Ohio City Pizza at gunpoint. At one point, Peterson pointed a stolen .357 Magnum at the head of a female employee while Ballou instructed him to shoot her. Unbeknownst to the perpetrators, four Cleveland Police Officers were conducting prostitution surveillance directly across the street while the crime was in progress and police officers made an arrest. A getaway driver got away and remains unidentified.

Colleen Reali prosecuted the case against both defendants. Her first order of business was to successfully appeal to the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court to bind Peterson over for trial as an adult. Both Peterson and Ballou pled guilty to aggravated robbery (with a gun specification) and other related charges and both were given the maximum sentence possible - 12 years in prison followed by 5 years of post release control (parole). Both defendants are believed to have been involved in numerous other local crimes. On the same day that he was sentenced, Ballou was scheduled to begin trial in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court with 19 codefendants from throughout the Cleveland area for Criminal Gang Activity. Ballou has been sentenced to 7 years for criminal gang related charges to run consecutively with his 12-year sentence for the Ohio Pizza Robbery.

Under sentencing guidelines, each defendant in the Ohio Pizza Robbery could have been sentenced to as few as 4 years in prison. Shore believes that the fierce prosecutorial efforts of Reali and the knowledge that the community was organized through Court Watch activities were persuasive to Judge Kenneth Callahan and Judge Timothy McGinty in their respective sentencing decisions.

Another pending high profile case in the 2nd District will be subject to community-based prosecution by Reali. Victor Gomez has been indicted on multiple counts of Rape, Gross Sexual Imposition, Kidnapping, and other offenses for the rape and assault of three women in their home on Carroll Avenue in August 2007. After enduring approximately 30 minutes of sexual assaults accompanied by threats, the women attacked the armed and masked intruder and drove him from the home. Clothing left behind by the fleeing rapist has persuasively implicated Gomez in the crime based upon DNA testing.

Cleveland Police arrested Gomez in December 2007 on suspicion of attempting to break and enter an Ohio City apartment. Police reported that Gomez was in possession of condoms, lubricant, a screwdriver and knives at the time of his arrest. His trial has been delayed pending the results of a court ordered psychiatric evaluation. Gomez is suspected of several other unsolved sexual assaults and has a criminal history going back to 1982. If convicted, Gomez can be expected to spend the remainder of his life in prison. (Editor’s Note: According to the Ohio City Near West Court Watch Update prepared by Bob Shores, Gomez pleaded guilty in Judge McGinty’s Courtroom on July 24th in the third day of the trial. Shores says, “44 year-old Victor Gomez was sentenced to 40 years, 11 months in prison.”)

In the First District, prosecutor Filiatraut points to a case in the Bellaire-Puritas neighborhood where the involvement of the Community Based Prosecution Unit was instrumental in the successful prosecution of an offender, David Byrd, 22, who, with a sibling, had been a habitual neighborhood nuisance and threat for several years. Byrd was arrested for breaking into an automobile and charged with breaking and entering and aggravated theft involving credit cards.  Initially, the owner of the car was reluctant to press charges or testify out of fear of retaliation, but Filiatraut was successful in rallying the community around the family and neighbors, friends, and court officers throughout the trial supported them. Byrd was sentenced to 20 months in prison, a relatively long sentence for the crimes committed.

Even what seem to be minor crimes can have a dramatic negative impact on a community in reducing quality of life and producing significant costs to residents of local communities. Danny “Chang” Zhang, 19, of Seven Hills and Daniel “Peek” Horvat, 20, of Wickliffe might have expected no more than a slap on the wrist under normal circumstances when they pled guilty to felony vandalism and misdemeanor criminal damaging following their arrest for a “tagging” campaign throughout the near west side of Cleveland. “Tagging is a sub genre of graffiti, but without any pretense of artistic merit, and it is time consuming and very costly to remove,” said Shores.

In a Plain Dealer article of August 16 2006, Horvat was quoted as saying that Cleveland is “a run-down, ghetto city, so who cares?” Obviously, a crowded courtroom of concerned citizens who joined Reali at the sentencing hearing were able to demonstrate to Judge Judith Kilbane Koch exactly who cared and she sentenced them to five years of probation and 2,000 hours of community service. This sentence will require them to spend 8 hours of every Saturday for five years in helping improve the Cleveland community. Judge Koch informed Horvat that he faces a 10½ year prison term for a violation of probation; Zhang could face a 5½ term for a probation violation.

As a result of the successful prosecution of Zhang and Horvat, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office joined with the Cleveland Police Department in creating a Graffiti Enforcement Project that has resulted in subsequent arrests and prosecutions. 3rd District Police recently arrested a notorious tagger known as “Heck”; prosecution is underway. Heck’s graffiti vandalism extends as far as Pennsylvania.

Bell says that his team of Community Based Prosecutors “will fight tooth and nail to win cases that are significant to community safety and well-being” and will do everything possible “get these bad people behind bars.” But, Bell stated that the County Prosecutor’s Office can also play a critical role in the community in crime prevention and they will begin to offer crime prevention education sessions in local schools this fall.

If you have a concern about criminal activity in the 2nd District, you can call Colleen Reali at (216) 443-7840. For concerns in the 1st District, you can call Kevin Filiatraut at (216) 443-7800.

News & Articles | Archives