EAST CLEVELAND — The City of East Cleveland’s failure to pay two judgments associated with police misconduct could cost taxpayers millions of dollars in interest, according to attorneys for the men involved in the cases.
In both cases, court records show the city has exhausted its appeals and been ordered to pay the judgments by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Yet, to date, the city has not paid a dime to either Charles Hunt or Arnold Black, according to attorneys, despite owing the pair more than $30 million.
“East Cleveland’s tried everything,” said Black. “Judge said, y’all gotta give this man his money.”
Black’s story began on April 28, 2012.
He said he was heading home from dinner with his mother when an East Cleveland police officer pulled him over on Strathmore Avenue.
“I said whatcha pull me over [for]?” said Black.
According to court records, Black’s truck was mistaken for a drug dealer’s, according to a detective.
But rather than let him go, Black said the detective attacked, punching him in the head while Black sat handcuffed.
“It was so fast, so fast,” said Black, “I just passed out.”
That’s when Black said he was tossed into a patrol car and driven to the East Cleveland police station.
“Then I remember them dragging me in the jail through the back way and put me in a closet,” said Black.
Black said he spent nearly four days locked in a storage closet with cleaning supplies.
He said he was forced to go to the bathroom in a locker and only given one carton of milk the entire time he was there.
Black said he believed police were going to kill him.
Eventually, police took him to the Justice Center, where he was booked on drug charges.
Court records show no drugs were found on Black, and those charges were dismissed.
But he said that arrest forever changed his life.
“I got two pinholes and the scars like that,” Black said, pointing to his head.
He said the beating by the detective left him with a brain injury that required surgery. But he added other scars, like paranoia and fear, while invisible, are just as real.
“I didn’t do anything," said Black. “Why [did] I get beat up and almost lost my life, and I had to have brain surgery, and I didn’t do nothing. I’m scared. I don’t trust nobody.”
In 2019, a Cuyahoga County jury ordered East Cleveland to pay Black $20 million in damages.
Black said he hasn’t received any of it.
“Not a cup or corn,” said Black. “Not a penny.”
Attorney Bobby DiCello represents Black as well as Charles Hunt.
Hunt sued East Cleveland after another police officer slammed into his car at 70 miles an hour, seriously injuring Hunt and a passenger, Marilyn Conard.
DiCello said the city has not paid any of the $12 million it owes Hunt in judgment and interest in that case either.
“I’m angry,” said DiCello. “The only people that don’t pay their judgments from what I’ve learned are con men, criminals, rabble rousers, people who tear at the fabric of society.”
So why hasn’t the city complied with the Supreme Court orders to pay the judgments?
“We’ve been in fiscal emergency and we really don’t have control over our own finances,” said Willa Hemmons, East Cleveland’s law director.
East Cleveland has been under the state’s fiscal emergency designation since 2012.
However, a spokesman for Ohio’s Office of Budget and Management said the oversight commission offers advice to city leaders but cannot dictate how the city pays judgments or balances its budget.
He said those decisions are up to the city’s elected officials.
“It’s not a question that our police force has seriously damaged people [and] that the city owes them,” said East Cleveland City Councilwoman Patricia Blochowiak.
It’s why she said council budgeted more than $6.4 million this year to start paying off the judgments.
But records obtained by News 5 Investigators show Mayor Brandon King vetoed that money and instead proposed budgeting $320,000 – not enough to cover the annual interest piling up on the Black and Hunt cases.
When asked, Hemmons denied advising the mayor or council that the city would not have to pay the money.
“Whatever was in my case status reports, you go by that,” said Hemmons. “That’s the extend of my interaction with council or with the fiscal commission.”
Or was it?
In a February 2023 email from Hemmons to the mayor, members of council and the head of the fiscal oversight commission, the law director wrote that the city should appropriate $25,000 a year for ten years plus another $100,000 to cover the Hunt case.
That adds up to $350,000 a year even though days earlier, the Supreme Court ordered the city to pay Hunt more than $12 million.
“Leadership has acted like the law does not apply to them for decades, and it’s not funny anymore,” DiCello said.
The attorney went back to court to get subpoenas for city leaders in an effort to learn what’s stopping his clients from getting the money juries said they deserve.
“It’s very clear, the City of East Cleveland is not going anywhere,” said DiCello. “And as long as it exits, it has the debt and the burden to pay the debt.”
In the meantime, people like Black are caught in the middle and left wondering if they’ll ever see a dime of justice.
“I think they wish I’d die,” said Black. “Then it’s gone. That guy, that case is gone. I think literally they’re wishing I’d die, for this to go away.”
Blochowiak admits she’s not sure where the city would get the money to pay the entirety of the judgments. When East Cleveland was first placed under fiscal emergency, its budget shortfall was just under $6 million, according to state records.
Now, the state said the deficit is expected to grow to a projected $30 million by 2028.
That doesn’t include the $32 million owed to Black and Hunt, and that amount continues to grow as interest piles up.
According to attorneys for the pair, as of 2023, the two judgments accrued roughly $6.8 million in post-judgment interest.
Mayor Brandon King has not responded to efforts to contact him for a response to this story.
