Son of former Cuyahoga County judge tapped to replace Lance Mason

By Cory Shaffer | cleveland.com
December 07, 2015

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The son of a former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court judge has been tapped to replace imprisoned former judge Lance Mason.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Monday appointed Matthew A. McMonagle, a Republican, who ran unsuccessfully in 2014 to replace his father, Richard McMonagle, as a Common Pleas Court judge.

The younger McMonagle, a partner at the law firm Kelley and Ferraro and a former Rocky River Municipal Court magistrate, will take the bench Jan. 4, according to a news release from the Ohio Supreme Court.

His seat will be up for election on the November ballot.

Mason, 48, resigned from the bench in September after pleading guilty to felony charges related to beating his wife. He is serving a two-year prison sentence.

Matthew McMonagle lost the 2014 election to Shannon Gallagher, who had never argued a case before a judge prior to her election.

McMonagle graduated from St. Ignatius High School in 1994 and from the University of Vermont in 1998. He got his law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2004.