'Bully' Serves His Punishment: Holding Sign In Public

By Bill Chappell / NPR

Published April 13, 2014 at 10:32 AM PDT

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Edmond Aviv, 62, sits with a sign at a street corner in the Cleveland suburb of South Euclid Sunday. Aviv, who called his neighbor "monkey momma" as she held her adopted, disabled African-American children, was ordered by a judge to display the sign.

The sign tells the story.

"I am a bully," it reads. "I pick on children that are disabled, and I am intolerant of those that are different from myself. My actions do not reflect an appreciation for the diverse South Euclid community that I live in."

That sign was displayed next to a busy roadside in a Cleveland suburb Sunday by Edmond Aviv, after a court found that he had abused his neighbors with racial slurs and vandalism that sometimes included dog feces.

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Many of those acts were aimed at Sandra Prugh, whom Aviv, 62, once called "monkey momma," according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer. The two have had problems for at least 15 years now. Here's how the newspaper describes Aviv's neighbor:

"Prugh has two adult adopted children with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy and epilepsy, a husband suffering from dementia and a paralyzed son."

One of Aviv's complaints against the Prugh family was that their laundry vent emitted the scent of Downy, which bothered him. Court records show that he later made a device that blew kerosene fumes at the Prugh's residence.

Today, Aviv wore sunglasses and a hat as he sat by his sign, as a South Euclid, Ohio, judge recently ordered him to do.

The Plain Dealer says people honked car horns and yelled at Aviv as he sat by the road.

"The judge destroyed me," Aviv told the newspaper. "This isn't fair at all."

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One of the court officials who checked up on Aviv today to be sure he carried out his punishment was South Euclid Municipal Court Bailiff Isaiah Simmons.

Simmons' son, Alex, 21, tells the Plain Dealer that Aviv used to yell at him, too, when he was growing up nearby.

"He called me porch monkey a couple times and the N-word," Alex Simmons said. "I told my parents at the time and they said to avoid his house and be the bigger person. This punishment is great. Justice has been served."

In addition to holding the sign, Aviv was also ordered to perform community service and get counseling, along with serving a short jail sentence. He also wrote a letter of apology to the Prugh family.