Around the Patch: Skipping Bar Tabs, Closing Borders & Backlogged Justice

1. After months of investigation, Kent Patch has published a series of stories about the mess former Kent Municipal Court Judge John Plough left during his short tenure on the bench.

Plough left  that his antecessor has to deal with.

Plough, who was elected to the bench in 2005, left in 2009 with his only term marred by complaints filed against him by attorneys and judges and tainted by reprimands from the Ohio Supreme Court.

His exit was followed in July 2010 with the one-year suspension of his law license by the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled that Plough jeopardized the judicial process by, among other charges, failing to keep adequate records.

The current Kent judge, Portage County Municipal Court Judge Kevin Poland, took office in 2010 to find close to 700 unresolved cases on his desk awaiting action.

For more information on this story, .

2. Borders Group will liquidate its remaining stores as early as Friday, including 

The  was already closed earlier this year.

 has the whole story.

3. A Solon man pulled up to the bar at Crossroads Restaurant and Lounge on Aurora Road and tipped back a few, to the tune of a bar tab of $83.80.

He passed the bartender three different credit cards, to no avail. When all of them were declined, he got up and walked out of the bar, telling the tender on the way to: "Tell it to my lawyer in the morning."

Instead, the bartender told Solon Police, 

4.  reports that police coaxed a 19-year-old woman off the Pro Football Hall of Fame bridge late Saturday night.