A jury found East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King guilty of theft in office and other crimes on Thursday, toppling another mayor in a city that has spent the last dozen years in fiscal crisis.
Cuyahoga County prosecutors told the jury that King improperly mixed his city work with businesses that he and his relatives owned. The jury acquitted King of two of the 12 counts he faced, finding him not guilty of a felony theft charge and a misdemeanor.
Also convicted was former Council Member Ernest Smith, who was charged with misusing city fuel cards to buy gasoline for a city car that he drove outside of city business. The jury found him guilty of all five counts against him, including one count of theft in office and two of theft.
Sentencing for King and Smith is set for June 9.
King is the latest East Cleveland mayor to be convicted amid years of political and financial turmoil.
Before King, Gary Norton served as mayor until he lost a recall vote in 2016. He was later sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to obstructing a federal investigation. Another former mayor, Emmanuel Onunwor, was convicted by a federal jury in 2005 of racketeering and bribery.
After King was indicted last October, he was suspended from office. The conviction prevents him from being reinstated to the job.
A Cuyahoga County Probate Court judge appointed Sandra Morgan, an East Cleveland resident who served on the state commission overseeing the city’s finances, as interim mayor in the meantime. She is running for the seat in this year’s municipal election.
King’s attorney, Charles Tyler Sr., said that his client still maintains his innocence. Tyler said he planned to appeal the verdict.
“The testimony and the evidence does not support this verdict,” he said, “but again, the jury have done what they were supposed to do, and we’re going to respect that.”
In a statement after the verdict, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley called King’s conviction “inevitable.”
“The citizens of East Cleveland deserve better than what their municipal government has provided them,” he said. “I am hopeful, under the new leadership of Mayor Sandra Morgan, that the city is now headed in the right direction.”
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Smith argued he had used the city car properly when he drove it to community events. He blamed the charges on politics.
“It’s a clear case of politicians politricking, and they will not — they have not — heard the last of Ernest L. Smith,” he said.
Prosecutors allege ‘disregard and disdain’ for the law
The jury reached its decision after a six-day trial before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Hollie Gallagher. The trial had been delayed after Tyler tried unsuccessfully to have Gallagher removed from the case. The two had butted heads over the timing of a defense motion to dismiss the case.
The case revolved around two King family companies.
One, King Management Group, owns a building on Euclid Avenue that has long leased space to a domestic violence program. The program pays its rent with grant dollars that are routed through City Hall. The other King family company in the case, American Merchandising Services, sold supplies to the city while King served as mayor.
Prosecutors accused King of engaging in “self-dealing.” When City Council voted to defund the line item for rent at King Management Group’s building, King vetoed the cut. Council voted to override that veto, but the city cut a check to King Management Group anyway, prosecutors said.
“This case is about disregard and disdain for the rule of law, separation of powers,” Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor J.D. May said in closing arguments Wednesday.
King had moved to distance himself from the property company by appointing a woman named April Thompson as King Management Group’s main point of contact. But prosecutors characterized the move as an attempt “to pull a fast one.” King’s name remained on the company’s bank account, May said.
“If you control the money, you control the company,” May said.
In his closing arguments, Tyler called King a “true leader.” He quoted a line about cross-examination from the Book of Proverbs to caution the jury not to take the prosecution’s witnesses at face value.
Tyler told the jury that the lease with King Management Group shouldn’t be considered a public contract at all. East Cleveland merely served as a pass-through for a grant that paid the rent of the domestic violence program, which is an independent group, he said. He argued that the rent money wasn’t council’s to cut in the first place.
“They knew, when they did their theatrics, that it wasn’t their money,” Tyler said. “We’re dealing with political theater that started in East Cleveland and ended up in a courtroom.”
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Andrew Rogalski later replied that the lease was indeed a public contract. He pointed to the fact that an expenditure for the domestic violence program’s rent appeared in the city’s budget.
As for American Merchandising Services, Tyler said the prosecution hadn’t shown that it was King who ordered the supplies. The jury found King guilty of some charges related to the merchandise company, but acquitted him of one.
Prosecutors said Smith misused a city car and fuel card while serving as a council member. After a special audit in 2024, the state auditor demanded that King and Smith repay $6,791 in fuel costs.
Smith’s attorney, Michael Lisk, told the jury that prosecutors had relied on the testimony of Smith’s “political enemies.” He argued that the East Cleveland records were such a mess that prosecutors couldn’t prove Smith had misused the fuel money.
The jury acquitted King of a felony theft charge related to Smith’s use of the car, while convicting Smith of all five charges he faced.
