The Observation Deck

Folks,

I have a correction to make. Mr. O’Leary did finally respond on Friday at the exact same time as Mr. Butler. Mr. O’Leary provided responses to the requests and a 126 page record that suggest he began serving as a prosecutor for the City of Cleveland in August 2019—Just in time to put it on his flyer. It is not clear from the 126 page document which of the hundreds of cases listed O’Leary actually served as prosecutor. Again, when I return home to my computer, I will try to post the records produced.

So, here we have a candidate alleging in literature that he is the ONLY candidate with experience and he it touting one month of experience, but of course misleading voters by not disclosing that limited experience. Stay tuned...

So here is Mr. Butler's email partially responding to my requests--- two attached records were produced by I can't seem to upload them to the deck due to "http error" formatting:

From: Kevin Butler <Kevin.Butler@lakewoodoh.net>
Subject: RE: Public Records Request Re: Serving as a Prosecutor
Date: September 20, 2019 at 12:26:18 PM EDT
To: Brian Essi <bjessi@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: "Sam O'Leary" <Sam.OLeary@lakewoodoh.net>, Jeannine Petrus <Jeannine.Petrus@lakewoodoh.net>

Mr. Essi,

Below you requested:

Council President O’Leary’s “employment file for the City of Lakewood”
Council President O’Leary’s “employment file for each municipality, county or political subdivision in which you are or have been employed as a prosecutor in the calendar year 2019”
“one public record containing the case number and name of the defendant(s) for each legal matter or engagement in which you served as a ‘prosecutor’ during the calendar year 2019”
“one public record containing the case number and name of the defendant(s) for each legal matter or engagement in which you served as a ‘prosecutor’ during the calendar year 2018”
“one public record containing the case number and name of the defendant(s) for each legal matter or engagement in which you served as a ‘prosecutor’ during August, 2019”
“one public record containing the case number and name of the defendant(s) for each pending legal matter or engagement in which you serve as a ‘prosecutor’ during September, 2019”
“all emails from Sam O’Leary forwarding my email of September 16, 2019 at 8;15 am (see below) to any other person”

In response to the first of these requests, please find attached a copy of Mr. O’Leary’s employment file with the city. It has been redacted of the following items:

Social Security number, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552a, R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(dd) and State ex rel. Beacon Journal Publ’g Co. v. City of Akron, 70 Ohio St.3d 605, 612, 1994-Ohio-6;
Driver’s license number, pursuant to R.C. 149.43(A)(1)(dd) and R.C. 149.45;
Personal information related to height, weight, hair color, eye color, emergency contacts’ address and emergency contacts’ telephone numbers, because those items do not document the functions of the public office and therefore are not public record. R.C. 149.43.

In response to the last of these requests, please find attached an email record.

Mr. O’Leary has not been employed or engaged in any way as a prosecutor for the City of Lakewood. Therefore, there are no records in our possession that are responsive to the remainder of your requests and this completes the city’s response.

Jeannine, please update the request log.

Best wishes,

Kevin M. Butler, Director of Law
City of Lakewood | Law Department
(216) 529-6034
kevin.butler@lakewoodoh.net

Here is Mr. O'Leary's belated response to my requests:
Note that I am having trouble uploading the single record that Mr, O'Leary produced from the Cleveland Municipal Court showing approximately 1,000 case numbers and defendants' names etc.


From: "Sam O'Leary" <soleary@mhglegal.com>
Subject: FW: Public Records Request Re: Serving as a Prosecutor
Date: September 20, 2019 at 12:26:32 PM EDT
To: "BJESSI@SBCGLOBAL.NET" <BJESSI@SBCGLOBAL.NET>

Mr. Essi,

I have now received your public records requests dated 9/16/19 and 9/19/19.

My understanding is that Lakewood Law Dir. Kevin Butler is responding to your first request and will provide the responsive records by the end of business today.

With respect to your requests denoted as “PRR SO-2”and “PRR SO-4” no such records exist.

With respect to your requests denoted as “PRR-SO3,” “PRR SO-5,” and “PRR SO-6,” I have gathered the attached 159 pages of publicly available court records for you.

This concludes my response to your requests.

Sam T. O’Leary, Esq.
Matty, Henrikson & Greve LLC
1001 Lakeside Ave. – Suite 1410
Cleveland, Ohio 44114
p: [ReDACTED BY BRIAN ESSI]
f: 216-621-1127
www.mhglegal.com

This message may contain information that is attorney-client privileged, attorney work product or be otherwise confidential. If you are not an intended recipient, use and disclosure of this message is prohibited. If you receive this message in error, please notify the sender by reply e-mail and delete the message along with any attachments.

Both a 3:00 pm and 3:00 am have passed since I sent this to my Ward 2 Councilmember. Still no response--I'll keep you posted.

From: Brian Essi <bjessi@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Follow Up Public Records Request Re: Serving as a Prosecutor
Date: September 24, 2019 at 12:40:04 PM EDT
To: Sam O'Leary <soleary@mhglegal.com>

Der Mr. O’Leary,

Thank you for your responses below.

Could you kindly elaborate on when you began serving as a prosecutor, the approximate number of hours you have spent working as a prosecutor, the number of working days you have worked as a prosecutor and the nature of your engagement, i.e. employee, independent contractors etc.

Sincerely

Brian J. Essi
216 346 3434

Just checking. There's quite a bit to wade through here.
Is Sam's claim that he is a prosecutor correct?
He made it again Thursday night in addressing the Dem club.

I'm sorry for the delay in getting the document posted in the link below, but I was waiting for someone at the Observer to help me make it available here as I could not upload it. I just got it this morning.

You can all see below the only record that Sam O'Leary produced in support of his claim that he is a "prosecutor".

It appears that the record consists of approximately 30 separate printouts of the Bratenahl cases scheduled at Cleveland Municipal Court for approximately 30 days of dockets starting in March 2019. The record produced does not mention Sam O'Leary's name and a random review of a few of the cases listed did not indicate Sam O'Leary's name as a prosecutor on those cases. That does not necessarily mean he did not serve in that capacity, but the records are not conclusive. That is why I wrote Mr. O'Leary for clarification on Sept 24---Still no response from him.

Further, I reviewed the Bratenahl website and Sam O'Leary is not listed as a prosecutor. I called the person listed as the prosecutor there (Attorney Thomas M. Hanculak) on Sept 24th and identified myself and the purpose for my call, but I have not received the courtesy of a return call. Note that Mr. O'Leary's response to one of my records request suggests that there is no employment file for him for Bratenahl.

Finally, the Bratenahl wesbite also lists a named partner in the law firm that employs Mr. O'Leary as Bratenahl's "Solicitor." I have not attempted to call that person.

So, you can all draw your own conclusions as to where Mr. O'Leary has actually backed up his claims that he is a "prosecutor" which was the question I posed as the title of this post.


http://media.lakewoodobserver.com/media ... 596730.pdf

Finally, please also note that I have chosen not to publish Mr. O'Leary's employment file here that Mr. Butler produced last week, since it contains personal family information and it is not relevant to his claim of being a "prosecutor."

So, when Sam told the Lakewood Democratic Club last night he is/was a prosecutor, there is nothing in the official record to back it up, according to an attorney and experienced investigator.

To the best of our knowledge, he was not telling the truth.

I’m wondering if it’s not a case of his law firm providing those type of services and he may be part of a group reviewing the cases but, in my mind, a prosecutor is a person who shows up in court and argues the state’s case against a person charged with a criminal offense.

He has nothing in his LinkedIn profile about any prosecuting experience.

It’s perplexing. Would be nice if he explained it.

Dan Alaimo wrote:So, when Sam told the Lakewood Democratic Club last night he is/was a prosecutor, there is nothing in the official record to back it up, according to an attorney and experienced investigator.

To the best of our knowledge, he was not telling the truth.

No. I disagree with your conclusions that: 1. Mr. O'Leary is "not telling the truth" and 2. "there is nothing in the official record to back it up."

Mr. O'Leary, a public official in Lakewood (and maybe a public official for Bratenahl), responded to three related public records requests (numbered PRR SO 3, 5 & 6 above) by producing the public record that has now been posted---which record Mr. O'Leary claims are cases in which he served as a "prosecutor". The records, by themselves do not reflect that he so served, rather, it is Mr. O'Leary making that claim.

I have not searched the entire official record, so I can't conclude "there is nothing in the official record to back it up." Also, I cannot conclude that the record Mr. O'Leary produced does not back up his claim--I'm just not in a position to conclude with reasonable certain one way or the other.

It seems to me that Mr. O'Leary that should provide clarification to the public---this should not require any member of the public or member of the media to conduct an investigation.

Mr. Essi---perhaps you should check your wristwatch. Just wait until 3:00 PM to present your questions.

Stan Austin wrote:Mr. Essi---perhaps you should check your wristwatch. Just wait until 3:00 PM to present your questions.

Sheriff Austin,

No response yet and its just past 3:00 pm, but High Noon in California where you and Gary filmed the classic...


"People gotta talk themselves into law and order..."

16 more 3:00pm's and 3;00am's have passed since my last post, and Mr. O'Leary continues to use the term "Prosecutor" front and center is his campaign without answering questions about that alleged status from a constituent in his Ward.

Consider this:

Jason Shachner is a full time public employee of a County Prosecutor's office, yet he consistently refers to himself as an "Assistant Prosecutor."

Mr. O'Leary, is presumably a full time private attorney who may or may not have worked very part time as a village prosecutor, but consistently refers to himself as a "Prosecutor."

Words matter. Integrity matters.

Check the mailer I/we received today..
In a series of bullet points about his experience, number one, in all caps is:
"PROSECUTOR:"

All his claims sound rather inflated.

“Works with law enforcement and safety forces.”

Did he get a ride in a cop car?


“Advises Mayors and City councils”

I’d really like to know WHAT cities, WHICH mayors has he provided “advice” to!!

Just like Trump, say something over and over until people believe it’s true?

Do people like Prosecutors? How is that impressive to voters? Are voters impressed by Prosecutors? Do voters even know what a prosecutor is?