Who Checks the Courts in Cleveland? New Records Continue to Put Judge Reali and Family Court Review Under Scrutiny

An appeals court found a legal error after facts from the same proceeding had already entered a custody case. Now records from Cwynar, Greminger and Dengler are raising a larger question about how mistakes are caught inside Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court.

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CLEVELAND, Ohio — A court decision can change where a child sleeps, how often a parent sees that child and what a family can afford for years afterward. When the decision contains an error, finding it is only part of the problem. Someone must recognize it, examine its significance and decide what needs to be corrected.

That responsibility has become the focus of Cleveland 13’s expanding investigation into Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court.

Nearly a year ago, the investigation began with a more immediate question. Who was actually doing the work assigned to an elected judge?

The records led to Judge Colleen Ann Reali, Magistrate Jason Parker, people waiting for a trial that did not happen and another proceeding Reali said she was “in trial” on, although the records identified Parker as the judicial officer conducting it. The reporting examined judicial presence, the use of magistrates and the responsibility judges retain when reviewing their work.

Then families began sending records of their own.

Court orders arrived alongside transcripts, recordings, appellate decisions and years of filings. Some documents supported the concerns people brought to the newsroom. Others complicated those accounts or showed that the court had done more than a complainant initially understood. Across different families and proceedings, however, questions about the accuracy of findings and the effectiveness of review kept returning.

The response prompted Cleveland 13 to place its planned Family Court accountability rally on hold while the newsroom organizes the evidence. Reporters are obtaining records directly from clerks and court officials, checking allegations against primary documents and examining additional cases.

One of those cases offers a particularly important starting point. In Cwynar, the Eighth District Court of Appeals identified an evidentiary error and found that the record contradicted the explanation given when that ruling was reviewed below.

The appellate court nevertheless affirmed the protection order. It did not find that the error changed the outcome.

Both facts matter. So does a third. Before the appellate ruling, the protection-order proceeding had already influenced a separate decision about Cwynar’s time with his children.

An error that survived the first review

The protection-order case involved Sean Cwynar and his former wife.

At a May 2025 full hearing, Cwynar attempted to introduce GPS information from a digital application to support his account of where he went after an encounter with her. Magistrate Stephanie Jerlstrom stopped the authentication effort after learning that the information came from an application, telling counsel that Cwynar was “not the company” that created or maintained it. The evidence was excluded. [E1]

A one-year domestic violence civil protection order was issued protecting his former wife. The children were not included as protected parties. On appeal, the Eighth District upheld the order, finding sufficient evidence to support it despite the GPS exclusion. [E2]

The court also found that the magistrate’s authentication rationale was “contrary to law.”

Judge Reali had overruled Cwynar’s objections on the ground that he had not presented a witness who could properly authenticate the GPS information. The appellate panel found that explanation inconsistent with the transcript. Cwynar had been prevented from explaining his knowledge of the exhibit once the magistrate learned it involved an application. [E2]

The contrast is straightforward. The appeals court found a legally incorrect reason for excluding evidence and a review-stage explanation that the record did not support. It also found that the protection order remained justified.

That leaves a legitimate question about how the error survived the first review, even though it did not require reversal.

What the parenting case does, and does not, establish

While the protection-order litigation continued, Magistrate Brent Kirvel heard a separate post-divorce parenting dispute involving the same family.

In his August 2025 decision, Kirvel described Cwynar as “volatile, including in public, when angered.” A footnote relied on what he called the “uncontroverted facts” underlying the protection order, including shouting obscenities and pounding on a car window during the encounter. Kirvel recommended reducing Cwynar’s parenting time. [E3]

Reali later gave Cwynar more Wednesday parenting time than Kirvel had recommended and declined requests to terminate shared parenting entirely. Her judgment also described a significant procedural limitation. The parenting-hearing transcripts had not been filed within the local-rule deadline, and she ruled that she could not consider them. Without a properly filed transcript, she wrote, she was required to accept the magistrate’s factual findings. [E4]

That limitation does not, by itself, establish improper review. It does explain why the procedural history matters. The judge reviewed the objections within a framework that restricted her ability to reconsider the underlying testimony.

The appellate court subsequently recognized the protection order’s continuing consequences in the parenting case and refused to dismiss Cwynar’s appeal as moot after the order expired. [E2]

There is an important boundary to that finding. The appellate opinion did not determine that excluding the GPS evidence caused an incorrect parenting decision. The GPS evidence concerned whether Cwynar followed his former wife after the roadside encounter. The conduct quoted in Kirvel’s footnote concerned what happened during the encounter.

The records therefore establish two related developments, without proving that one caused the other. An evidentiary error survived initial judicial review, and the proceeding containing that error influenced a separate parenting case.

Whether the exclusion affected the parenting outcome is a different question, one this opinion does not answer.

Two records, two different descriptions

The Greminger case presents a more direct conflict between written court records.

Cleveland 13’s president, Matthew Greminger, is a litigant in that case. His position within the network creates a conflict of interest that readers should consider when evaluating this reporting. The discussion below relies on linked records and distinguishes the court’s findings from arguments made by the parties.

Before the divorce trial, Greminger sought a domestic violence civil protection order. The petition was denied after a full hearing. The filed denial order describes the temporary order that preceded that hearing with the statement “Petitioner is listed as a protected person only.” [E5]

Parker’s later divorce decision describes the children as protected parties under that ex parte order. The statement appears while discussing Heather Greminger’s separation from the children and again in the parenting analysis. [E6]

Those descriptions conflict. Establishing that discrepancy does not require choosing which spouse to believe.

Matthew Greminger raised it as his first objection to Parker’s decision, asking the court to address the inconsistency between the records. [E7]

The discrepancy alone does not establish that the custody recommendation must change. That requires examining how the statement was used and whether it materially affected the analysis. It does give the reviewing judge a concrete issue to resolve.

An incorrect fact can travel through a court record much like an incorrect diagnosis copied forward in a medical chart. Repetition can give the statement the appearance of settled history. Meaningful correction requires checking both the original entry and the conclusions that relied on it.

Review must resolve competing accounts of the record

The parties’ objections raise additional questions that require careful separation of allegations, evidence and findings.

Before trial, Greminger sought Parker’s removal based on allegations of bias and extrajudicial conduct. Reali denied the motion and directed that evidence of the alleged misconduct would not be heard at the divorce trial. [E9]

That ruling did not prohibit every later reference to the motion. Heather Greminger’s subsequent objections characterized it as frivolous and included it in an argument about litigation conduct and financial harm. That characterization is a party’s argument, not an independent finding that the motion was frivolous. [E10]

Her filing also states that all her exhibits were admitted, while Parker’s written accounting does not list every exhibit on which the objections rely. That difference warrants comparison with the trial’s actual admission rulings. An omission from a written list, standing alone, does not establish that an exhibit was excluded. [E6] [E10]

The account of the guardian ad litem’s recommendation also needs its full context. Heather’s objections describe Eric Laubacher as recommending custody to her. Parker’s decision describes shared parenting as the GAL’s preferred recommendation before he was required to choose between the parents after Parker concluded that no shared-parenting plan could be imposed. [E6] [E10]

A conditional recommendation and a preferred arrangement convey different information. The reviewing court must assess both accurately.

Parties are entitled to argue for different outcomes. Judicial review is where their competing descriptions must be tested against the record.

Dengler complicates the picture

Dengler v. Dengler provides an important counterpoint.

Parker recommended an attorney-fee award exceeding $2.2 million. Reali reviewed objections and reduced it to roughly $1.18 million. Whatever questions remain about that litigation, the substantial change demonstrates that she did not simply adopt Parker’s recommendation unchanged. [E11]

Dengler also connects to the investigation’s original question. As previously reported, Reali told people waiting for the Greminger trial on January 12 that she was “in trial” on Dengler. Parker’s decision, the transcripts and Reali’s later judgment entry identify Parker as the judicial officer who heard the Dengler proceedings that day. [E12]

The cases do not establish that every magistrate’s recommendation receives inadequate review. They show different results at different stages.

Dengler demonstrates substantial revision. Cwynar documents a legal error that survived the initial review. Greminger presents a conflict between records now raised through objections.

The public-interest question is how those review processes work, what limits them and how the court determines whether an identified error affected the resulting decision.

A broader debate, with important distinctions

The records arriving at Cleveland 13 involve other judges, magistrates, attorneys and families. Some support further investigation. Others challenge the account that accompanied them. Both belong in the newsroom’s assessment.

People who contact an investigative newsroom are not a representative sample of everyone who uses the court. Their submissions can identify leads and document particular problems. They cannot, by themselves, establish how frequently those problems occur across the system.

Family-court concerns have also brought people into national organizations with substantially different priorities. The Center for Judicial Excellence and National Safe Parents Organization emphasize child safety and abuse concerns. National Parents Organization advocates shared-parenting reform, while One Mom’s Battle focuses on post-separation abuse. Their different approaches reflect how contested this field remains.

[E13 — Center for Judicial Excellence · National Safe Parents Organization · National Parents Organization family-court reform · One Mom’s Battle]

Judicial discipline is a separate matter from correcting an erroneous ruling. Proceedings involving Kentucky’s Dawn Gentry, West Virginia’s Louise Goldston and Ohio’s Jon Ickes illustrate oversight of established misconduct. They do not establish misconduct by Reali or explain the errors examined here. Ickes was suspended for two years and removed from judicial office without pay during that suspension in August 2026.

[E14 — Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission records, including Dawn Gentry · West Virginia Supreme Court’s Goldston decision · Ohio Supreme Court coverage of Jon Ickes’s removal/suspension]

That matters, because an incorrect ruling, a disputed factual finding and a judicial-conduct violation require different evidence and different responses. Accountability depends on identifying which problem the records actually establish.

Ohio is considering changes to parenting law

Ohio lawmakers are also considering Senate Bill 174, a proposal to revise the laws governing allocation of parenting responsibilities.

The Senate passed the bill on November 12, 2025. As of October 12, 2026, the official legislative history lists it in the House Judiciary Committee, without House passage. [E15]

The bill’s merits require their own examination. Changing parenting statutes and ensuring accurate judicial review are related public concerns, but legislation should not be presented as a demonstrated remedy for the specific errors described in these cases.

Residents who want to participate can follow the bill’s official records, contact their House representative and Judiciary Committee members, and consult committee notices for opportunities to submit testimony. The legislative votes are cast by lawmakers, rather than through a scheduled statewide ballot on the bill. [E15] [E16] [E17]

The question the records leave behind

Cleveland 13 has submitted questions directly to Reali and, as of publication, has not received a response. The absence of a response does not establish wrongdoing. It leaves questions about the records and review process unanswered.

The investigation began by asking who was handling proceedings associated with her courtroom. It now reaches a responsibility that remains with a judge even when a magistrate hears the testimony.

In Cwynar, the appellate court identified an erroneous evidentiary rationale while affirming the protection order. In Greminger, two records describe the protected parties differently, and that conflict has been raised for review. In Dengler, Reali substantially changed a magistrate’s recommendation.

These are different findings. Together, they make the operation of judicial review worth examining closely.

For a parent, the consequences of a court decision are measured in ordinary moments. A Wednesday evening. A school pickup. A bedtime missed. The next bill that arrives. Accuracy matters because the paperwork reaches into those moments.

Courts cannot promise perfection. The public can still expect that a documented error will receive a clear examination, that its significance will be assessed and that the resulting decision will explain what the court found.

Cleveland 13 will continue checking the records, including those that challenge the investigation’s initial assumptions. The question is whether errors are recognized and addressed while there is still an opportunity to prevent an unsupported finding from shaping what comes next.

When the work is wrong, who catches it before a family has to live with it?