ANNIE YAMSON
Daily Reporter
This week, the 11th District Court of Appeals overruled the appeal of Ronald Dudas, who had challenged the Lake County Court of Common Pleas’ decision denying his motion to withdraw his guilty plea to charges related to threats made to law enforcement officials and fraud.
This was Dudas’ 15th appeal and he has since been barred from filing any more pro se motions.
It is the latest in a series of criminal actions involving Dudas that date back more than three decades.
Case summary states that, on Oct. 29, 2005, Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge David Matia sentenced Dudas in an unrelated case to 17 months in prison on his guilty plea to felony theft and a probation violation.
The moment he entered the Cuyahoga County Jail, Dudas began plotting his revenge.
He made phone calls to his girlfriend, Jennifer Bost and told her he was going to visit the detective who investigated his case and sodomize him.
Two days later, Dudas called his girlfriend again and told her he was “going to take that gun from the deputy and shoot the f----r (Matia) in the head.”
Then Dudas began discussing his case with some of his fellow inmates. He offered inmate Daniel Whitehead $10,000 to murder Matia and hurt the detective. Whitehead declined.
Dudas also offered thousands of dollars to inmate Robert Harmon if he agreed to kill Matia and break the detective’s legs.
Harmon contacted Cleveland Police homicide detectives and agreed to wear a recording device and discuss the murder plot with Dudas.
Dudas contacted one of his theft victims and convinced him to pay $300 dollars to Harmon which was meant to serve as an initial deposit for Harmon’s role in the murder plot.
During a phone call with Bost, Dudas also admitted to entering Harmon’s prison cell and writing a note that stated, “I, Robert Harmon, hereby state that I falsely tried to set up Ronald Dudas to enhance myself. I have told several lies to detectives about Ron Dudas. I sign this note because I was wrong for what I did.”
Dudas mailed the note to Bost and claimed it was his protection in the event that Harmon turned out to be an informant. But, after analysis, the Lake County Crime Lab quickly determined that it was a forgery.
On April 18, 2006, Dudas was indicted by the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury and charged with 14 counts of intimidation, 15 counts of retaliation, two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and attempted felonious assault on a police officer.
Five months later, the grand jury returned another indictment in a separate case involving Dudas’ actions between June 2000 and April 2002.
Case summary states that he had formed an enterprise for the purpose of providing loans to individuals in dire financial straits. In reality, he stole their money and real estate.
“Many of appellant’s victims were near foreclosure and appellate took advantage of their plight by stealing the last of their assets,” wrote Judge Cynthia Westcott Rice on behalf of the 11th District’s three-judge appellate panel.
Dudas forged signatures and falsified loan applications, prepared fraudulent mechanics’ liens against properties and falsified documents that allowed him to collect on them.
In all, he stole in excess of one million dollars from multiple victims and more than $100,000 apiece from 14 separate victims, many of whom were elderly.
In that case, Dudas was indicted on 135 counts for engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, 30 counts of tampering with records, 10 counts of securing writings by deception, six counts of telecommunications fraud, 46 counts of forgery, 35 counts of theft by deception and six counts of money laundering.
A change of venue was granted and the cases were consolidated and assigned to Lake County.
After two days of trial, Dudas entered guilty pleas in both cases.
At the sentencing hearing that took place on Dec. 1, 2006, Judge Matia testified as a victim and stated that he was intimately familiar with Dudas’ extensive criminal record. He told the trial court that Dudas’ life work has been to defraud and steal.
Evidence presented at the hearing also established that Dudas had tried to injure and intimidate judges before.
In 1995, Dudas retaliated against Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty due to remarks that McGinty had made while sentencing Dudas’ then-girlfriend, Patricia Boychuk.
Dudas tracked McGinty down to a gym in downtown Cleveland. He then joined the gym so he could get near the judge.
One day while McGinty was using the bench press, Dudas suddenly appeared over the judge, grabbed the bar and proceeded to harass and intimidate him.
Boychuk was an attorney whose license to practice was suspended as a result of the case against her.
The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court found that she was a battered woman and that Dudas had beat her.
The Board also found that Boychuk was addicted to cocaine and that Dudas had supplied her with the drug.
After Boychuk’s license was suspended, Dudas took over her law practice without her knowledge. He falsely held himself as a attorney and accepted fees to perform legal work for Boychuk’s clients.
In 2001, Dudas was on probation for the unauthorized practice of law and theft when he stole money from the 35 victims of his enterprise.
Several of those victims spoke at his sentencing hearing too.
They described how their families had been destroyed financially and their credit ruined. Many had been forced into bankruptcy.
The trial court reviewed evidence that in 1979, 1987, 1992 and 2004 Dudas was convicted in other theft cases. In 1995, he offered an inmate $2,500 to break a common pleas judge’s hand.
After listening to the victim testimony and reviewing Dudas’ extensive criminal record, the Lake County court finally imposed a sentence that totaled 30 years in prison.
Five motions to withdraw his guilty plea, two petitions for postconviction relief and 15 appeals followed.
In his most recent appeal, Dudas alleged that he had newly discovered evidence in form of an affidavit from Harmon and that the trial court erred by not allowing him to withdraw his guilty pleas.
He maintained that he should have been granted a hearing and that his motion and petition for postconviction relief were timely filed.
He also claimed that the trial court erred when it prohibited him from making future pro se filings.
The court of appeals found no merit to any of his arguments and it warned that any attorneys who choose to represent Dudas in the future should think twice.
“In light of appellant’s history of frivolous filings, the trial court had the authority to caution attorneys representing him to refrain from involving themselves in such activity,” wrote Rice. “It is the order and judgment of this court that the judgment of the Lake County Court of Common Pleas is affirmed.”
Presiding Judge Timothy Cannon joined Rice to form the majority.
Judge Colleen Mary O’Toole, however, dissented.
Writing separately, she stated that Dudas “makes a legitimate assertion which should not be discounted given how serious the charges are in this case.”
She contended that Dudas did, in fact, point to legitimate newly discovered evidence and maintained his innocence, which entitled him to at least a hearing on his motion to withdraw his plea.
She also cited the $23,000 taxpayer cost per year of housing an inmate as well as a recent article published in “Ohio Lawyer.”
According to statistics published in the magazine, 2013 saw a record number of exonerations in the U.S. and, in nearly one-third of those exonerations, no crime ever actually occurred.
“In the interests of justice, when inconsistencies are presented and cast legitimate clouds as to the evidence or procedures used to convict defendants, a hearing on the evidence is warranted,” wrote O’Toole. “Based on the facts presented, it behooves our justice system to afford appellant a hearing.”
The case is cited State v. Dudas, 2014-Ohio-4292.