SHAKER HEIGHTS, OH – Ex-Judge Lance Mason stabbed his ex-wife in the neck early on November 17th and texted a friend to tell her he was contacting his attorney, Fernando Mack, to surrender to police. The ex-judge was at his ex-wife’s home at 17611 Chagrin Boulevard when he stabbed her to death in front of their two children and left in a panic; hitting a police officer as he drove away.
The friend said Mason had been working to rebuild his life since his release from prison in June 2016.
Both Mason’s parent’s died before his incarceration. His brother, Lauren, died while he was in prison.
After his release Mayor Frank Jackson hired him to work in an administrative support job in the city’s minority business department in August 2017. He was suspended indefinitely from practicing law by the Supreme Court of Ohio in December 2017.
The friend said Mason had created an online chocolate company that was beginning to become a real enterprise. But he was unhappy because of his separation from his family. The couple had previously created a chocolate company called “Aubrey’s Chocolate Shop” named after their daughter.
The friend said Mason’s mother-in-law, Millicent Lee, wanted her daughter, Aisha Fraser-Mason, his former wife, to have nothing to do with him. Aisha, however, had become a bit more conciliatory towards her former husband and had extended his visitations with the children beyond the limits authorized by court order. She wasn’t, however, planning to remarry him.
Mason had violently beaten Aisha in August 2014 in their SUV while he was driving near Shaker Square. An RTA passenger exited the train, saw his attack and called police. Mason’s fists caved in his pretty wife’s face; and he did it in front of their two children seated in the back seat.
Khalid Samad, a Cleveland activist and friend of Mason’s, told EJBNEWS he saw police surrounding Aisha’s home where the couple once lived together; and didn’t connect the yellow tape to the people he knew. Samad said he stopped and learned from police he knew that Mason had murdered his wife.
Samad described the crime scene as brutally-bloody and wondered just how much damage the ex-judge had done to his ex-wife.
“This thing is horrific” the activist who’d been to dozens of similar crime scenes said of this one. “I’ve never seen this much blood before.”
Samad said Aisha’s mother, Millicent, arrived at her daughter’s home on a cane surrounded by other members of their family. The emotions, he said, were heart-rendering. The traumatized children, he said, were in police custody.
After his release from prison Mason was hounded by reporters like Tom Meyer of WKYC. Meyer and reporters like cleveland.com’s Mark Naymik have reputations for targeting black elected officials like Mason for especially close public scrutiny while ignoring similar acts committed by white elected officials. The ex-judge, state senator and son of a prominent physician and real estate agent was a rising political star; and at one time the only black male on the Cuyahoga County’s court of common pleas.
As a judge he was viewed as fair-minded. Some saw him as a possible candidate for the 11th Congressional District. It’s why news of his assault on Aisha in 2014 shocked Cleveland’s black community.
“The Mason’s were the Cosby family and this is like learning that Theo Huxtable killed his wife,” said Chase Brewer.
