How Celebrezze Guilty Plea Tarnishes Long Family Legacy

Across a number of generations, the Celebrezze household constructed a permanent political dynasty that has wielded energy and affect from Cleveland to Washington, D.C.

Because the Nineteen Twenties, Celebrezze members of the family have occupied a unprecedented sweep of public workplaces, from Cleveland mayor and state lawyer common to the state Supreme Courtroom, appellate courts and county benches.

In 2009, Leslie Ann Celebrezze grew to become the household’s first girl to run and the primary to win an election when voters tapped her to switch her father as a Cuyahoga County Home Relations Courtroom choose.

The household dynasty took one other flip after she pleaded responsible on Wednesday to tampering with public data for making a false court docket entry to steer work to Mark Dottore, a longtime household pal whom she’d repeatedly appointed to supervise profitable divorce instances.

Celebrezze stated little through the listening to and declined remark to reporters as she left the courtroom together with her lawyer.

Visiting Decide Mark Wiest from Wayne County didn’t instantly set a date for Celebrezze’s sentencing on the third-degree felony cost, which carries a possible jail sentence of as much as three years.

Prosecutors stated they won’t request jail time, leaving that call to Wiest.

The choose stated a lesser jail sentence is a chance and that he’ll depend on a pre-sentence investigation to assist information his choice.

“I’m not saying [a jail sentence] goes to occur, however I need that choice,” Wiest instructed Celebrezze.

The conviction comes greater than two years after The Marshall Mission – Cleveland first detailed Celebrezze’s relationship with Dottore.

Coming to America

Rocco Cilibrizzi was a shepherd in Potenza, Italy, when he moved his household to Cleveland round 1912, becoming a member of the surge of immigrants who would make town the nation’s fifth largest at the moment. To slot in, the household surname was Americanized to Celebrezze.

Their political affect first took maintain after brothers Anthony J. Celebrezze Sr. and Frank D. Celebrezze held prestigious posts in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, and have become energy brokers contained in the native Democratic Occasion.

Frank grew to become an assistant county prosecutor in 1929 and later labored as Cleveland’s security director, changing the famed “Untouchable” Prohibition agent Eliot Ness in 1942. He later received a seat on the Cleveland Municipal Courtroom.

Anthony was elected Cleveland mayor in 1953, serving till 1962, when he was picked by President John F. Kennedy to develop into a cupboard secretary of the Division of Well being, Schooling and Welfare.

His identify is emblazoned on the federal authorities’s skyscraper blocks from the courthouse the place his great-niece, Leslie Ann Celebrezze, sat as a choose.

The household’s second era expanded its affect additional on the Ohio judiciary and state politics. At one level, two Celebrezze members of the family sat on the seven-member state Supreme Courtroom.

Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. served as a state senator, secretary of state and lawyer common.

Frank D. Celebrezze Jr. was a state Supreme Courtroom justice from 1972 to 1986, serving as chief justice for eight of these years. He misplaced a 1986 election to maintain his seat.

His brother, James, joined him on the bench in 1983, making them the state’s first siblings on the excessive court docket.

In 1991, James Celebrezze received a seat on the Cuyahoga County Home Relations Courtroom. He retired in January 2009. His daughter, Leslie Ann Celebrezze, who had been a Justice of the Peace for the Cleveland Municipal Courtroom, adopted in his footsteps onto the court docket. Controversy over the household’s relationship with Dottore additionally adopted.

Brent Larkin, who has written about Cleveland and Ohio politics since 1970, stated the Celebrezze dynasty has had two branches, each having fun with success on the poll field.

One was led by Anthony J. Celebrezze Sr. and his son. The opposite consists of brothers James and Frank Celebrezze, who have been each embroiled in controversies once they served on the Ohio Supreme Courtroom.

The household additionally clashed in a single election. In 1976, cousins Anthony Celebrezze Jr. and James Celebrezze confronted one another in a crowded congressional major, with each shedding.

“There was no love misplaced among the many two household factions,” Larkin stated.

He stated he doesn’t consider that Leslie Ann Celebrezze’s conviction will harm the household’s future in politics. The Western Reserve Historic Society lists her as one in all seven notable Italian American Ladies in Northeast Ohio.

“Historians received’t permit Leslie Celebrezze’s sleaze to tarnish the complete household’s legacy,” Larkin stated.

Dottore and household ties

Dottore, a longtime pal of the Celebrezze household, additionally served because the marketing campaign treasurer for Leslie Ann Celebrezze and for Nicholas Celebrezze, a choose on the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Courtroom.

Simply after Leslie Ann Celebrezze took her father’s judgeship in 2009, the Ohio Supreme Courtroom eliminated her from a divorce case involving a rich actual property developer through which Dottore was already appointed as receiver.

Celebrezze’s father initially appointed Dottore to that case and 10 others over the last six months of 2008, netting Dottore $340,000 in charges.

But, “The choose gave no work to another receivers throughout the identical interval, data present, regardless of an Ohio Supreme Courtroom rule that such appointments be rotated equitably,” The Plain Vendor reported.

Then-Ohio Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice Thomas Moyer wrote in his ruling that he additionally had considerations that Leslie Ann Celebrezze would “proceed to have interaction within the questionable use of Dottore’s providers initiated” by her father.

Celebrezze later eliminated herself from 88 instances that began together with her father.

Outdated troubles resurface

In 2023, The Marshall Mission – Cleveland first raised questions that Celebrezze, the executive choose on the time, directed case assignments to herself. She said in court docket entries that the instances had been randomly assigned to her.

In some complicated divorce instances, judges appoint receivers to behave as impartial events to regulate a pair’s marital belongings, together with actual property, money, gear, deposit accounts and companies. The receivers are paid by the divorcing {couples}.

Celebrezze authorised practically $500,000 in charges to be paid to an organization, Dottore Cos. LLC, between January 2017 and June 2023, The Marshall Mission – Cleveland reported. The choose appointed both Dottore or his daughter to be the receiver in six instances she dealt with throughout that point, in response to Cuyahoga County court docket data.

In December 2025, a visiting choose ordered Dottore to repay practically $1.3 million in unauthorized charges that Dottore paid to his personal lawyer to overview his invoices in a divorce involving Strongsville businessman Jason Jardine. Dottore billed Jardine and his former spouse Crystal for the authorized charges. Dottore filed a discover to enchantment the ruling.

Celebrezze and Dottore instructed The Marshall Mission – Cleveland that they have been solely lifelong buddies, even after a personal investigator recorded movies of them kissing exterior a steakhouse and Celebrezze visiting Dottore’s dwelling and workplace quite a few instances. Each denied it was a romantic relationship.

Nevertheless, Celebrezze conceded in court docket data in 2025 that she beloved Dottore when she bypassed the court docket’s random project course of to shift instances to her docket and subsequently appointed him as receiver.