In 2014 Ealy and running mate Ken Gray of Cincinnati received 17,197 votes — 17 percent of those cast statewide — in the Democratic primary against former Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald and Sharen Schwartz Neuhardt of Yellow Springs. FitzGerald won the primary with 83 percent of the vote but lost the general election to Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
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During an interview at the time, Ealy said that he was running because he believed “the Jewish Democratic party is behind the deprivation and the conspiracy to keep black people deprived of all civil rights.”
He also said he was allowed to practice law without a license.
Ealy and three others were investigated for alleged irregularities in voter signatures on the nominating petitions he submitted to get on the ballot in 2014.
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A grand jury reviewed all four cases and did not return indictments on Ealy or Keith Belluardo of Dayton, said Greg Flannagan, spokesman for Montgomery County Prosecutor Mathias H. Heck Jr.
Two others were indicted. Bruce Black of Dayton pleaded guilty to two counts of prohibitions related to petitions — a fifth degree felony — and was sentenced to probation on Oct. 26, 2017, Flannagan said. Jody Lane of Dayton was indicted on the same charges and a warrant was issued for him on June 29, 2017, according to documents on file at the Montgomery County Common Pleas Clerk of Court.
Ealy and Belluardo both denied wrongdoing in a 2014 interview.
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Ealy, who could not be reached for comment, is the father of Lance Ealy, who was sentenced to 124 months in prison in 2015 after being convicted of charges involving filing more than 150 fraudulent federal income tax returns.
Lance Ealy sent to prison in tax fraud case
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