Ward Leader Faces Drunken Indecency Charges

THE PLAIN DEALER: WARD LEADER FACES DRUNKEN INDECENCY CHARGES
“Family Values” Champion Noethen Caught With His Pants Down
Sunday, August 29, 2004

CLEVELAND – Just months after his release from the Betty Ford Clinic for court-ordered alcohol and sexual deviancy treatment, Seventh Ward Councilman Mark Noethen was found semi-conscious and incoherent by Brook Park police yesterday morning, his pants and underwear around his ankles, rambling on about “Peachez, that brotha’s got his shit messed up.”

Noethen, whose blood alcohol level registered an astounding six times the legal limit, was reported to police by a Brook Park resident who went to get her morning paper and found the ward leader passed out half-naked on her tree lawn. The resident, whose name is being withheld by police under state sex trauma guidelines, is being treated at a local sex trauma counseling shelter.

So far details are incomplete, but police blotter reports and eyewitness testimony confirm that Noethen picked up his transvestite lover De’Shaun “Peachez” Washington in his Ford Taurus at 4:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, on the way to a weekly fish fry at VFW 298 in Fairview Park. The couple left the VFW at 6:45, heading for a swinger party in Ohio City. On the way they stopped at the Whirling Gerbil Peepshow & Sex Toy Emporium on Brookpark Road in Parma, where receipts show Washington purchased various scented lubricants and a large, vibrating egg.

Employees of the Whirling Gerbil described Noethen as boisterous and “obviously shit-faced,” and said that after he goosed a female patron his lover became visibly upset, repeatedly yelling, “Peachez ain’t given’ out cream tonight, sugar.” Noethen became enraged and, after threatening several onlookers with a 12-inch vibrator called “The Behemoth,” berated Washington as a “half-wit” and a “lousy lay.” The ward leader stormed out, after which his whereabouts are mostly unknown, except for a brief encounter with a homeless man near Public Square, who described the episode as one that “takes days to recover from physically, and months to shake emotionally.”

Noethen, who often touts his working-class background and “Family Values” conservatism, gained prominence ten years ago as a Republican power broker in this largely Democratic county. His “Fuck the Poor” campaign resonated with the small but vocal neo-Nazi movement in Cleveland, as well as with semi-affluent, middle-aged professionals who learned under Ronald Reagan to vote uncannily against their own interests.

Noethen has his detractors as well, even within his own party, including Bishop Anthony Pilla. Pilla, who like the ward leader is anti-abortion, admitted in an interview with the Plain Dealer three years ago that if abortion could ever in good conscience be considered, it should only be used in cases where the child was obviously going to turn out “like that morally bankrupt, anti-Christ fuck-stain Mark Noethen.”

Noethen has had ongoing problems with the Catholic Church, and in public often refers to it as “that antiquated cult of pederasts.” His effort to force eminent domain on church holdings in Cuyahoga County was highly controversial, even after he backed away from initial plans to use the property for “Free-Love Orgasm Actualization Centers.” Eventually the move backfired, as Bishop Pilla had him excommunicated from the church and, in a move that stunned even the Vatican, replaced Satan’s name in the New Testament with the moniker “!Noethen!”

But it was Noethen’s chronic problems with alcohol and transvestite porn that led him afoul of the law and eventually alienated him from even his staunchest allies. During his recent reelection campaign many female staffers complained bitterly about his seemingly endless requests for “Bushmills and backrubs.” After thwarting a sexual harassment suit filed by a transsexual staffer, he flaunted his victory by appearing topless on the cover of Cleveland Magazine, a bottle of Bushmills in one hand and a large, anatomically correct dildo in the other. During the interview with Dick Feagler, he pushed for fiscal restraint, torte reform and revealed his affinity for scratch and sniff panties.

After a party celebrating the cover story an inebriated Noethen was caught on videotape in a downtown parking garage, savagely beating two parking attendants with a bullet-nosed flashlight, berating them as lackeys of the “Zionist, communist conspiracy.” During the subsequent trial Noethen, despite advice from several prominent Republican lawyers in Cleveland, declined council and acted in his own defense. Citing a conflict of interest, his first motion requested the immediate dismissal of Democratic Second Circuit Court Judge Tom Sweeney who, Noethen wrote, “isn’t qualified to wipe my ass.”

After denying Noethen’s request, Judge Sweeney ordered a psychological examination and petitioned the Ohio Supreme Court to reinstate flogging as a capital punishment. While they denied Judge Sweeney’s request that Noethen be publicly and mercilessly flogged, the heavily-stacked Republican court ruled in a unanimous decision: “Councilman Noethen, while hardly deserving of the right to breathe, should be treated as a violent sexually deviant sociopath, alcoholic and chronic masturbator. We hereby recommend that he attend a credibly certified alcohol and sexual rehabilitation program or, failing that, the Betty Ford Clinic.”

After serving three weeks of his six-month sentence, Noethen was released from the Betty Ford Clinic with the rating “Just sober enough to drive to the store for coffee and milk.”

All attempts to reach De’Shaun “Peachez” Washington for comment were referred to his

parole officer.

By G. Pennebaker Gorman, Plain Dealer Staff Writer