A community activist accused of extorting protection money from two gas stations on Cleveland’s East Side appeared at a contentious hearing Wednesday over access to evidence in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
Antoine Tolbert is the founder and chairman of New Era Cleveland, a group that works with young people and conducts armed safety patrols in East Side neighborhoods to prevent violence.
His attorneys were in court seeking information from his accusers, including surveillance camera footage and employee records.
The charges against Tolbert started with an Aug. 3 incident at a Race Fuel gas station on Lee Road on the East Side. According to a police report and a television news report from five days later, between 10 and 20 armed men arrived at the gas station in the early morning.
According to a Cleveland Division of Police police report dated Aug. 8, “they held the store hostage for 3 hours and wouldn't let the staff leave.” Those armed men were allegedly all members of New Era Cleveland. Tolbert is accused of telling gas station management, during a subsequent phone call, that “I’m going to shut it down if I don’t get paid.”
A grand jury indicted Tolbert on Aug. 26 of two counts of extortion, two counts of aggravated riot, breaking and entering and aggravated menacing. The six felony counts each carry what are known as firearm specifications, meaning Tolbert had a gun or guns with him while allegedly committing the crimes. The firearm specifications add years of mandatory jail time onto the sentence Tolbert would face if convicted.
Tolbert denies all the charges. He, along with members of his group, were at the gas station that night because there were fights among young people in the area, and a nearby shooting, and he was trying to help defuse the situation, according to Tolbert. New Era Cleveland’s armed patrols and community work has focused on deescalating conflicts like this one for years.
The gas station owners, Ibrahim Shehadeh and his associate Rubin Swift, allege that Tolbert and New Era Cleveland threatened a boycott of their gas stations if Tolbert’s demands for payment were not met, according to the police report and court hearing.
At issue in court on Wednesday was whether Tolbert had the right to view surveillance footage from the two gas stations linked to the case and to employee records laying out who was working during the nights in question.
Tolbert’s attorneys, Maryam Assar and Peter Pattakos, issued a subpoena for the records on Sept. 19. On Sept. 29, attorneys for Ibrahim Shehadeh and Rubin Swift filed a motion to throw out the subpoena.
In court, Shehadeh and Swift’s attorney, Adam Brown, said no additional video existed and that the other records requests were “fishing expeditions.”
“They want a whole list of all these employees just on the off chance it could be helpful to them,” said Brown. “You cannot use the subpoena power to embark on a fishing expedition.”
The employee list and records would also open up Shehadeh, Swift and other employees to harassment and threats, said Brown.
Tolbert is barred by the court from having any contact with the alleged victims or witnesses involved in the case.
“It’s important to understand what this case is really about,” said Pattakos, Tolbert’s attorney. “Our defendant is a community leader. He has received grants from the city. He has received commendation from city officials about the work that they do, being active in underserved communities.”
The use of the term “hostage situation” was a mischaracterization of a boycott, said Pattakos, and the surveillance footage should be produced to make clear what exactly happened.
In their subpoena, Tolbert’s attorneys also asked specifically for the record of employment for Rubin Swift.
“He makes all of these accusations in these police reports about what happened on these nights, and he is not in any of the video that was produced. And we don’t believe he was there,” Pattakos said. “We don’t really believe he’s even employed by any of these gas stations. If he is, the nature of his employment seems to be very suspect.”
In a police report the defense referenced during the hearing, Swift told police that Tolbert’s wife came in and asked him how much it would cost to make the case go away. According to Pattakos, that report includes a note that there was video and audio of that incident, which the defense has also not received.
“We want all the video because we want to prove that Rubin wasn’t even there and he’s talking to the police about incidents that he claims to have witnessed that he didn’t actually witness,” said Pattakos.
Tolbert was previously arrested in 2022 for openly carrying firearms — which is legal. Those charges were rejected by a grand jury and Tolbert eventually settled a lawsuit with the city for $85,000.
In that case, Tolbert parked his car in the parking lot of a Rite Aid at St. Clair Avenue and East 105th Street before starting an armed patrol. According to police reports, the first call to police came from Rubin Swift, whose address and date of birth matched the Rubin Swift in the 2024 case.
Swift told police he happened to be exiting the Rite Aid after picking up his prescription when he saw Tolbert take a shotgun out of the trunk of his car and begin walking down the street. He also claimed people in the parking lot and outside at the time were panicking, leading to a charge of inciting a riot, which was also dropped.
Swift’s connection to Tolbert’s earlier arrest was not brought up during Wednesday’s hearing. The judge in the case, William Vodrey, said he will consider the subpoena and the motion to have it thrown out and issue a decision at a later date. The case is scheduled for trial on Dec. 18.
