LORAIN — Former Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Adrian Betleski Sr. died Sunday of complications from pneumonia at the age of 92.

“He was a great common man in that he never forgot his roots,” said county Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski, one of Adrian Betleski’s five children. “He always treated people as equals or better than him.”

Former Lorain City Councilman David Wargo served as the elder Betleski’s bailiff during his two terms on the bench from 1976 through 1988.

“He was a gentleman, and he never played politics, and he was a fair man,” Wargo said.

Betleski was born in 1917 in the Cleveland suburb of Brooklyn and lived in Parma with his family until he was in the seventh grade when they moved to Ashland County to farm. He graduated from Homerville High School in 1934 and worked as a farmer until 1941, when he became a trooper for the Ohio Highway Patrol, according to biographical information provided by the Betleski family.

In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became a blimp and balloon pilot. He was stationed in Florida where he flew blimps on night anti-submarine patrols over the shipping lanes of the Caribbean Sea.

He later became a celestial navigator, working on military cargo planes flying out of Hawaii ferrying wounded soldiers and supplies to the Admiralty Islands, the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, Guam and Japan. While Betleski was training for that post, he was stationed in Lakehurst, N.J., and met his future wife of 63 years, Eileen Curran, at an officers club in New York City.

After his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he attended The Ohio State University and got married. In addition to their five children, Adrian and Eileen Betleski have nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild, with another on the way, Mark Betleski said.

Adrian Betleski passed the Ohio bar exam in 1950 and opened a private practice in Lorain that same year.

Mark Betleski said his father, who was “100 percent Polish,” choose Lorain because of its large ethnic population.

Adrian Betleski spent two months as a Lorain Municipal Court prosecutor before he was recalled to the Navy during the Korean War and served as a personnel officer at a naval air station in Akron.

He became an assistant county prosecutor in 1954 and served in that capacity until being elected Lorain city solicitor in 1960 and served three terms in that post, according to the biographical information.

In 1968, Betleski won the Democratic primary in the race for the 13th Congressional District but lost in the general election to then-incumbent U.S. Rep. Charles Mosher, R-Oberlin.

Betleski won the 1976 election to become a judge, and it was work that county lawyers said suited him well.

“I thought he was a very good judge, a little conservative,” said former county Common Pleas Judge Joseph Cirigliano. “He always listened to people.”

In addition to serving as Lorain County Bar Association president and being involved in the Knights of Columbus, Betleski was also a devout Catholic, his friends recalled.

That faith was tested during his time on the bench when he sat on a three-judge panel that ultimately sentenced Ronald Ray Post to death in 1984 for killing a motel clerk.

Cirigliano recalled that a local bishop had just sent out a letter condemning capital punishment shortly before Post was sentenced to death, making it harder on Betleski.

Wargo said his former boss struggled with the decision.

“He said, ‘I hate to do this, but this is the way the law reads, and this is what I have to do,’ ” Wargo said.

Wargo recalled Betleski as a “workaholic,” who was constantly looking for ways to save taxpayers money.

In 1982, Betleski came under fire for asking defendants seeking court-appointed lawyers if they had considered serving as their own attorneys.

“I did not expect it to get blown up as big as it did,” Betleski said at the time. “I just sometimes wonder whether the people asking for attorneys are actually indigent or not.”

Wargo said Betleski’s commitment to protecting the taxpayers’ money was important to him.

“He looked after the taxpayers’ money,” he said. “He always gave the taxpayers their money’s worth.”

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Miraldi said he always thought of the elder Betleski as an uncle, who helped him become a better lawyer.

Miraldi said he tried his first case in front of Betleski, just a week after passing the bar exam and was nervous about objecting to improper questions from the other attorney in the personal injury case. But he said Betleski would call out an objection and then sustain it to make sure his client got a fair trial.

Miraldi also recalled when a defendant about to be sentenced told the judge it was his birthday.
“He asked how old he was, and the defendant said, ‘Today’s my birthday,’ and he broke into a big grin and said, ‘Happy birthday,’ and then proceeded to sentence him,” Miraldi said.

Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.

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