Cuyahoga County judge charged with Tampering with Records

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office announced Monday that a Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Judge was charged for filing a fraudulent journal entry.

Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze, 54, was charged by way of information with one count of Tampering with Records, a Felony 3, for filing a fraudulent journal entry.

“Integrity on the bench is not optional. Anything less erodes the foundation of our courts and our justice system,” Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley said in a press release.

On Jan. 19, 2023, Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze filed a journal entry that contained false information that she had been randomly assigned to a case.

According to the press release, Judge Celebrezze, as Administrative Judge, had manually assigned herself to the case.

The entry she filed did not reflect the manual assignment and falsely stated she was randomly assigned.

The investigation was conducted with assistance from the Cleveland Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.

The prosecutor’s office said she has been charged with one count of Tampering with Records, a Felony 3.

The filed charging document can be viewed here.

According to the Supreme Court Rules for the Government of the Judiciary of Ohio, Rule III, Section 6(A), “A justice or judge is disqualified from acting as a justice or judge while there is pending an indictment or an information charging the Justice or judge with a crime punishable as a felony under state or federal law.”

The prosecutor’s office said as a result of this charge, Judge Leslie Ann Celebrezze is immediately suspended from the judicial bench.