Attorney, sanctioned in cover up case, appeals

Accusations of a cover up, involving a man accused of molesting his own daughter, may not have ever come to light had a Cleveland attorney working on the case not tipped off a reporter.

 

Now that attorney, Peter Pattakos, is appealing a judge’s ruling he pay nearly $11,000 in sanctions for “frivolous conduct,” after he contacted a Cleveland Scene magazine reporter last year, alerting them to the existence of publicly-available court documents.

 

Pattakos is the plaintiff’s attorney in a case involving the English Nanny and Governess School in Chagrin Falls.

 

In 2015, a Cuyahoga County jury awarded Christina Cruz, a former student, and Heidi Kaiser, a former employee, $392,750 in damages after the pair claimed the school’s owner, Sheilagh Roth and her son Bradford Gaylord, discouraged them from reporting a case of child sexual abuse to police. 

 

Roth, defending herself publicly for the first time, said Thursday those allegations are not true and that there was nothing stopping Cruz or Kaiser from speaking to police.

 

"There’s no proof of it. There’s nothing documented. No, it is not true,” she said.

 

The suit against Roth alleged that in July, 2011, Cruz witnessed a client molest his 9-year-old daughter while working as a nanny in his Pennsylvania home. The man is not named in the lawsuit. Cruz later did report the claim to local police.

 

During ongoing court proceedings, retired Common Please Court Judge Burt Griffin imposed sanctions against Pattakos for contacting a reporter, a move Pattakos’ attorney Subodh Chandra said Thursday was unprecedented.

 

“I was really flabbergasted,” Chandra said. "We’ve never seen a court apply a sanction like this.”

 

Chandra filed a motion appealing the ruling over the weekend, which has been supported by several trade organizations representing the public interest, including the Ohio Association of Broadcasters, of which WEWS-TV is a member.

 

If the ruling stands, it could impact how reporters uncover news.

 

“It would have an absolute chilling effect on the media, on the public’s right to know,” Chandra said.

 

Roth said the sanctions have less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with a news article, she claimed, was not fair in its coverage.

 

“Once you post on the internet, you’re worldwide,” Roth said, “It’s viral."