Cleveland Bar Ass'n v. Cleary

The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline (“board”) of the Supreme Court has filed a certified report recommending that this court sanction the respondent, Patricia A. Cleary, Attorney Registration No. 0024286, for acts of professional misconduct committed while Cleary was a sitting judge on the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. For the reasons that follow, we adopt the board’s findings of fact and conclusions of law and suspend Cleary from the practice of law for six months.

I

In August 1998, twenty-one-year-old Yuriko Kawaguchi appeared before Cleary and entered a guilty…