Former Community Development Director Suspended
A convicted attorney has been suspended by the Ohio Supreme Court.
Cleveland.com reported
A judge on Thursday sentenced a former city of Cleveland department head who pleaded guilty to meeting what he thought was a teenage girl for sex last year to a correctional facility for inpatient treatment.
A courtroom security guard placed 43-year-old Michael Cosgrove in handcuffs and led him out of the courtroom to the county’s jail, where Cosgrove will remain while he is screened for acceptance into the Toledo-based Lucas County Correctional Treatment Facility.
Cosgrove, who left his post as the city of Cleveland’s director of community development in late 2017 to lead the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland, will remain in custody at the facility until he completes a treatment program that could take up to six months. He will serve probation once he’s released.
Cosgrove must also register his address every six months for the next 25 years as a tier II sex offender.
Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland’s interim director Gretchen Bowman said in an email Thursday that Cosgrove no longer works for the organization.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Steve Gall could have sent Cosgrove to prison for up to 18 months, or released him on probation. He instead sentenced Cosgrove to local incarceration, a step above probation but an alternative to prison, to send a message, he said.
“If not me, who is going to protect one of our most valuable assets, which is our children,” Gall said.
Cosgrove pleaded guilty April 24 to attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a fourth-degree felony. Prosecutors agreed to drop importuning and possessing criminal tools charges in exchange for his guilty plea.
Cosgrove wept as he read from a pre-written statement apologizing for the damage he inflicted on his wife, his children and the community. He said he was a devastated man, but had been going through counseling to heal his broken soul and was committed to be a better man.
“I never again want to even approach my conduct on that day,” he said. “However, I am ready and willing to face the consequences of my actions.”
Cosgrove’s wife and children, along with members of his church, packed the courtroom to support him, but did not speak on his behalf.
Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carl Sullivan read excerpts of the Nov. 26 chat that Cosgrove had with an undercover agent with the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children task force who posing as a 15-year-old girl on the social media app Whisper.
Cosgrove’s username on the app was “Married Guy,” Sullivan said. The agent told him that she was 15 and asked if it was going to be a problem, Sullivan said. Cosgrove replied, “that depends on what you look like,” Sullivan said.
The two exchanged messages for a few hours before Cosgrove offered to pick the agent up and go to lunch, Sullivan said. When the agent asked if he was at work, Cosgrove told the agent that he was “the boss” at a housing nonprofit and can leave whenever he wanted, Sullivan said. The agent told Cosgrove that she thought she was too young, Sullivan said.
Cosgrove replied: “‘Probably. Plus I don’t want to get in trouble by doing things like bending you over my desk,’” Sullivan said.
Cosgrove also mentioned performing oral sex on the girl before they decided to meet, Sullivan said.
Cosgrove buried his head in his hands as Sullivan read the messages aloud. His family and supporters had left the courtroom before that portion of the hearing began.
Investigators with the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department and Parma Heights police were waiting for Cosgrove when he showed up at the meeting spot and arrested him.
Sullivan asked Gall to impose a prison sentence. Cosgrove had no prior record and the charge he pleaded guilty to was a low-level felony, Sullivan said, but his true intent was to have sex with a child.
“These are the types of individuals that we go on these social media sites for, that we’re trying to prevent,” Sullivan said. “There must be some sort of punishment for this type of crime.”
As part of his plea deal, Cosgrove had to hand over to prosecutors a pink iPhone with a black Otterbox case, according to court records.
Defense lawyer Ian Friedman said Cosgrove and his wife of 25 years were going through rough patch and Cosgrove had an undiagnosed mood disorder which led to a need for adrenaline and risk, Friedman said. Cosgrove also had been diagnosed with sex addiction and has been in counseling since his arrest, he said.
Friedman said the humiliation and embarrassment Cosgrove has already suffered since his arrest will continue for the rest of his life. He will forever be a convicted sex-offender, will lose his law license and has winnowed his savings down to $7,500 and had to sell a car to pay legal bills, Friedman said.
He has also exposed his wife and his children to the embarrassment of his case, Friedman said.
“Michael Cosgrove knows he left a lot of victims in this case,” Friedman said, as Cosgrove cried behind him.
Two mental health and sex-addiction counselors who have been treating Cosgrove since his arrest, as well as the pastor at Cosgrove’s Cleveland Heights church, said they felt Cosgrove was truly remorseful for his conduct and committed to get help. They said they did not believe that sexual counseling that is available in the state’s prison would be as helpful as the counseling he was already getting.
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson tapped Cosgrove in February 2017 as the city’s Director of Community Development, after nearly two decades in government, according to a news release announcing his swearing-in.
Cosgrove began his career as an attorney at the Thompson Hine law firm before he moved in 2002 to the city’s law department, where he handled code enforcement, the release said. He worked his way up to second-in-command at the community development department in 2014, and was picked to lead the department when then-director Daryl Rush lost his battle to lung cancer in January 2017.
(Mike Frisch)