Our mission is to expose and remedy corruption in the Probate Court of Cook County, Illinois. We assist, educate and enlighten families of the dead, the dying, the disabled and the aged to better understand their rights in order to protect themselves from the excesses of the Probate Court of Cook County. ProbateSharks.com is dedicated to networking the human element of people to people. We join together in reforming the corrupt Cook County Probate Court system.
The Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline in Rhode Island is not happy with District Court Judge Rafael A. Ovalles. They just finished an investigation into the judge’s behavior, and they found his behavior violated the standard of judicial ethics. That’s no bueno.
So what did Judge Ovalles allegedly do? The full report is a treasure trove of weird and disturbing behavior — listen, when you read the allegation that the good judge asked a pregnant attorney before him if she’d eaten too much over the holidays or was pregnant and it doesn’t crack the top 10 terrible things he is accused of, you know you’re in for a doozy.
The Providence Journal reports that Ovalles has some… control issues, and he tends to take them out on women:
The commission documents Ovalles abusing a female public defender by berating her in open court, interfering with her job by creating rules exclusive to her, and confining her to her seat. It found that he publicly mistreated a deputy court clerk, including throwing a file at her in court.
Of course he also reportedly falls asleep in court, and is allegedly dishonest and tried to interfere with the Commission’s investigation — so we are dealing with a real winner. Allegedly.
And I’ve been saving the best — or at least the most disgusting — for last:
The allegations include that the clerk delivered a file to the judge’s chambers on two occasions only to find Ovalles sitting in his chair with his pants unbuttoned, his zipper down and his hand inside his underwear. The commission’s report details an incident in which Ovalles let a female attorney get in front of him in line for a wake and then commented that he was enjoying the view from behind. Ovalles, it says, inappropriately asked the clerk if his shoes made him look sexy and told her she could come in and watch him “suck his lollipop.” She once knocked on his door and found him getting dressed. Another female clerk reported finding Ovalles sitting behind his desk with his pants hanging up behind him in clear view. Sheriffs and male clerks were often recruited to accompany female clerks into his chambers.
Have you ever met a girl that you tried to date, But a year to make love she wanted you to wait, Let me tell ya a story of my situation, I was talkin’ to this girl from the U.S. nation.
Biz Markie isn’t the perfect stand-in for today’s tale of debauchery and benchslappery, but it sets the mood. It is about the unrequited love of a young co-ed — the Indiana Supreme Court opinion is silent on whether or not she possessed 9/10 pants and/or a very big bra — but instead of a lovesick hip-hop artist, we have a 40-something lawyer jilted by his daughter’s college roommate.
To the lawyer: Dude, I know it sucks to get disbarred, but this whole “affair with your daughter’s friend” thing could have ended so much worse. Have you ever seen American Beauty?
In any event, just hooking up with younger women, couldn’t be no crime. And that’s a fact. But things get way way more off-the-rails according to the Indiana Court’s decision.
The lawyer, R. Mark Keaton, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was a 41-year-old married attorney when he took up with a sophomore at Indiana University (later a law student) who happened to be his daughter’s roommate.
To Daughter Keaton: Don’t you hate when your roommate’s having loud sex in the other room… with your dad.
The Supreme Court opinion characterizes the relationship as “tempestuous.” Can we get an example?
(Shouting) Call me the f*** back! I don’t know who the f*** you think you are. But I’ll tell you what, you better f***ing call me f***ing back now! You f*** with me one more time and this time you’ll really f***ing pay for it! And you need to think about it! Now you f***ing quit f***ing with me! I f***ing deal with your f***ing illness so f***ing long, don’t f*** with me another f***ing day! Not another f***ing day! You return my call right now!
That call was purportedly made by Keaton to his young paramour after she dumped him, and allegedly represented a pattern of abusive phone calls the lawyer made to the girl. That said, he had some reason to feel rage:
One form of leverage over JD [the sophomore] exploited by Respondent [Keaton] was financial. Respondent had borrowed about $8,000 from JD during their relationship, and JD needed this money repaid for her educational expenses. For several months after their break-up Respondent endeavored to condition repayment on JD’s agreement to communicate and meet with him.
You know when your law practice isn’t doing so hot? When you borrow money from a 19-year-old girl. The million-dollar law degree isn’t what it used to be. My question is how, after learning that an established lawyer needed to borrow money from a child, she still decided to go to law school? There’s a head-scratcher. Anyway, she didn’t respond to his entreaties, and he acknowledged this like a mature adult. Nah.
“You do not have class at noon. If you f*** with me this time, it will be the last time. Do you understand?”
It was a school day, I knew she was there.
But, enduring abusive phone messages isn’t the only thing this young woman had to deal with:
Unfortunately, Respondent repeatedly carried out these latter categories of threats, both through emails to others and through postings on various adult-oriented websites. Respondent frequently taunted JD afterwards. In one such instance, in April 2008, Respondent wrote to JD, “Just so you know, they’ve been up on one site since March 1, when you started this s***. 151 pictures to date; 209,748 hits! . . . The site permits people to mark their favorites and everyone loves you.”….
Additionally, Respondent has maintained and published for several years a blog about JD that identifies her by name and includes disparaging diatribes about her and explicit photographs of her.
Revenge porn, eh? How couldn’t these crazy kids make it work?
Despite the distance between Fort Wayne and Bloomington, Respondent’s unwanted post-breakup contact with JD was not limited to telephone and electronic communications. At least twice during the spring and summer of 2008, Respondent showed up unannounced at JD’s residence, and on one of these occasions JD discovered Respondent peeping into her bedroom window. In the fall of 2008, after JD had started law school, Respondent confronted JD in the school’s law library and demanded she have coffee with him, refusing her pleas that he leave, and Respondent later prevented JD from getting into her car by standing between her and her car door.
I went to a gate to ask where was her dorm, This guy made me fill out a visitor’s form, He told me where it was and I as on my way, To see my baby doll, I was happy to say.
And then he allegedly lied during the investigation of all this, which I guess we should have expected.
God bless you, Indiana. You never fail to disappoint when it comes to the crazy. They’ve got lawyers demanding sex for legal services, breaching confidentiality for personal vendettas, and now this thing. I guess the word “Hoosiers” means “ethically challenged lawyers”?
The moral of the story, as always: So please listen to the message that I say Don’t ever talk to [or threaten, or revenge-porn] a girl who says she just [is your daughter’s] friend. (As always, the full decision is available on the next page…) Stalker Attorney Permanently Disbarred [Legal Profession Blog] Earlier: Demanding Sex For Legal Services Frowned Upon In Indiana Prominent Conservative Commentator’s Attorney Disbarred
Many students trudge through law school for three years with big dreams, hoping to someday slip the brass ring of law firm partnership onto their finger. With up to six figures of student loan debt later, recent graduates will put their nose to the grindstone and study endlessly prior to taking the bar exam. Those who pass the test will toil away as young attorneys at their firms for years and years, wishing, wanting, and waiting for the moment when they’ll be able to make the victorious leap from associate to partner. When that day finally comes, it will be a glorious occasion, if only because they’ve worked so hard to achieve it.
But why bother wasting away in law school and law practice for all those years — and not to mention accumulating all of that debt — when you can just tell people you’re a lawyer?
That seems to be exactly what Kimberly Kitchen, a Pennsylvania woman who was recently elevated to the partnership of BMZ Law Offices, is accused of having done. We wrote about Kitchen last year when news of her alleged transgressions first broke, and now she’s been formally charged with forgery, unauthorized practice of law, and felony records tampering.
As we noted previously, Kitchen claimed to have graduated from Duquesne University School of Law in 2005, and then worked for BMZ Law for about 10 years before being promoted to partner in April 2014. She also claimed to have taught as a professor at Columbia Law School. Prior to these charges being brought, she claimed to have worked as a paralegal at Reed Smith for more than a decade on her LinkedIn profile (which has since been taken down). This is what her bio on the BMZ Law website used to look like:
Unfortunately for Ms. Kitchen, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office just wasn’t buying what she was selling. Here are some additional details from NBC News:
Kitchen allegedly forged numerous documents attesting that she was a licensed attorney, including an attorney’s license for 2014, supposed bar examination results, supposed records of her law school attendance and a check purporting to show she’d paid her registration fees.
Duquesne University told NBC station WJAC of Johnstown in December, when the state investigation began, that it had no record of Kitchen’s having attended. The state attorney’s registration office shows no listing for her.
Editor's note: This Shark would like to see an examination of ethics or lack thereof in the Probate Court of Cook County. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Like everyone else, I took ethics in law school. We learned the ABA Rules, role-played scenarios such as a client revealing during a deposition that he’s a white supremacist, and generally spent a lot of time discussing what-ifs. Then I had to pass the MPRE, which is ostensibly about ethics, though I suspect it primarily tests one’s ability to answer trick questions (e.g., “which one of these questions is not three-fourths false?”). So when I graduated, hopefully I had a good understanding of ethics.
Then I went to Biglaw and forgot it all.
Well, maybe not exactly, but as an associate getting force-fed work, you don’t really have that many ethical issues. I didn’t have long agonizing brooding sessions about whether it was ethical to draft a 10-K. I’d even say that it takes some effort to be unethical. Starting a Ponzi scheme or telling people the parties to the latest M&A deal aren’t things that are hard to avoid. (I wouldn’t have had a clue who to blab to even if I had wanted to tell someone — it’s not like anyone was demanding I tell them what I’m working on, or even expressing any interest in it — and in the throes of a deal I was too busy to communicate with anyone outside of the circle of trust anyways.) I used to read stories about lawyers being disbarred for “co-mingling” funds and I knew that sounded bad, but I’d wonder what exactly that meant. Why did the lawyer have his client’s funds in the first place? Clients never sent me money and asked me to hold onto it for them for awhile. Odd.
But in SmallLaw, ethics matters are much more upfront and personal. When you have your own practice, it doesn’t take long to become well-versed in the ethics rules. You learn quickly what a lawyer’s trust account is and that when a client pays a retainer it has to go into your trust account and stay there until you earn it. (So no trips to Rio until you actually do some work.)
When I have lunch with my fellow SmallLaw practitioners, something about the ethics rules will invariably come up, conversations which simply didn’t happen in Biglaw. Advertising, for example. There are a lot of ethics rules relating to advertising, and they vary from state to state. In general, you’re not allowed to make promises and you can’t call yourself something that implies a certain result. (So my marketing scheme of being the “Jailbreak Lawyer” went down the tubes.) Because of the New York ethics rules, in my quarterly newsletter I have to include “[ATTORNEY ADVERTISING]” in the subject line. So basically every three months I pull an all-nighter composing something that goes right into everyone’s spam folder. Makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside.
And in SmallLaw, you get presented with all kinds of shady stuff. People will dream up a get-rich scheme — often involving soliciting medical malpractice cases — and all they need to carry it out is someone with a law degree who doesn’t ask a lot of questions. (You get this a lot if you have a D.C. license, where it’s legal to partner with a non-attorney). Unethical? Hard to say for certain. But close enough to make me nervous.
One thing about being your own boss, you get the chance to find out how ethical you really are. When you don’t have enough in your operating account to cover all your bills for the month yet you have thousands of dollars sitting in your trust account that you could transfer over with two clicks, that is a much more immediate in-your-face ethics situation than resisting puffing your hours or keeping the parties to an M&A deal confidential.
But, like a lot of things about the leap to SmallLaw, it all helps you be a better attorney, and maybe even a better person. You make the decision you’re going to do the right thing, and then go from there. After all, someone needs to be constantly checking the rules of professional responsibility and making sure you’re in compliance. Might as well be you. Gary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and compliance matters for investment funds, small businesses, and non-profits, occasionally dabbling in litigation. You can reach Gary by email at Gary.Ross@JacksonRossLaw.com.
An Illinois patent lawyer accused of blogging with a reckless disregard for the truth is facing a proposed three-year suspension.
The hearing board of the Illinois Registration and Disciplinary Commission recommended the suspension for lawyer JoAnne Marie Denison because of her blog comments about judges and lawyers. TheLegal Profession Bloglinks to theproposed suspension, filed Nov. 21, and summarizes the accusations.
According to the hearing board, Denison oversaw a blog about a probate matter in which she alleged corruption in the probate court, both generally and in the probate matter. Specific individuals were identified in a “table of torts,” which Denison described as “TEN PAGES of questionable behavior, corruption, misfeasance, malfeasance, perpetration of misdemeanors and felonies” in the case.
Denison’s blog had alleged a guardian was appointed for an elderly woman at the center of the case, though she did not need one, and the guardian had stolen from the woman and did not take proper care of her. The elderly woman, the blog alleged, had been “fleeced out of her home,” and “court-connected lawyers” were added to the case to “churn the feeding frenzy.”
Denison began blogging after a judge refused her application to represent the elderly woman’s daughter.
A disclaimer on the blog warned that “portions of this blog have to be entertaining so we can get the word out” and readers should do their own investigation of the facts.
The hearing board found that there was no rational basis to support Denison’s allegations about improprieties. In reality, the board said, the lawyers working on the case were not compensated for the vast majority of their work. Despite the disclaimer, other blog sections suggested the unfounded allegations were true, the board said.
In mitigation, the hearing board said Denison “genuinely, though unreasonably, believed something was wrong with the proceedings” in the probate matter and had a “sincere desire” to help the elderly woman.
“From our perspective,” the hearing board said, “it appears respondent has genuine concern for senior citizens and perceives the senior population as vulnerable, especially to financial exploitation. This concern, as a general matter, is a legitimate one, even though respondent had no reasonable basis for believing the judges or attorneys in [the specific] case were corrupt.”
In aggravation, the hearing board cited Denison’s “tendency to inappropriately personalize matters. This tendency was apparent in conduct by Respondent which included filing multiple lawsuits, which had been dismissed, against the attorneys in the [probate] matter.”
Related articles:
ABAJournal.com: “Lawyer’s blog posts about ‘sleazy world of probate’ bring ethics complaint”
08 Aug 2014 at 1:32 PM
Crime, Legal Ethics
Man Pretends To Be Lawyer, Becomes Criminal Defendant
By Joe Patrice
By all accounts, Stephen G. Dickerman is a pretty good lawyer. He retired from practice a few years back.
By all accounts, Stephen G. Dickerman is a pretty poor lawyer. He’s an unknown man who appears to have stolen the former’s identity.
In a bizarre story out of Brooklyn, the FBI arrested a man for using the identity of the retired Stephen G. Dickerman to operate a law practice in Brighton Beach for the last several years.
How easy is it to steal a lawyer’s identity? Shockingly easy it turns out. As in, you should be really worried about your identity easy.
As of now, authorities still have no idea who this guy really is — he still insists that he’s Stephen G. Dickerman, practicing under his supposed Hebrew name as Shlomo Dickerman. The only thing we know for sure is that this guy’s got a lot of chutzpah….
How did Shlomo Dickerman get Stephen G. Dickerman’s law license? Shouldn’t you need some personal information to pull that off?
The lawyer whose identity was stolen did not respond to repeated notices in 2008 and 2009 requiring him to renew his attorney registration in New York, according to an arrest and search warrant affidavit filed in Brooklyn federal court. In 2009, an individual claiming to be Stephen G. Dickerman showed up at the registration office and received a copy of the delinquent notice form, which included the lawyer’s Social Security number, date of birth, the law school he attended and his attorney registration number.
Oh, so they’ll just give that to you if you ask nicely. Who needs the Internet when stealing an identity is as easy as asking nicely at your local state bar office? If you haven’t called your state bar and asked them for a guarantee that this couldn’t happen in your state, maybe go ahead and do that now.
Sneaking into court by assuming the identity of a lawyer who no longer practices used to be a heroic thing:
Unfortunately, Shlomo wasn’t as skilled as Mr. Gambini.
As authorities have pieced together the story, after snagging Stephen G. Dickerman’s license, Shlomo Dickerman practiced for a few years before deciding to “take his talents to Cadman Plaza” and get sworn in to the Eastern District of New York in 2012. Since then, Shlomo Dickerman appeared in at least 12 federal suits.
In Gokadze v. Hynes — a case against, among others, Eric Holder and New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, so you know it’s not frivolous — Judge Roslynn Mauskopf offered a review of Shlomo Dickerman:
For purposes of this dismissal, the Court will highlight the main failures of Gokadze’s counsel, Stephen “Shlomo” Dickerman, in prosecuting this case. On January 4, 2012, this Court ordered Mr. Dickerman to file a letter by January 12, 2012 “as to whether or not he intended to continue his representation of plaintiff.” Mr. Dickerman did not comply with the Court’s order, as he filed nothing in response by January 12, 2012, or even to date. Moreover, Mr. Dickerman did not file letters in response to the defendants’ pre-motion conference letters as per the undersigned’s Individual Practice Rule III.A.2. Mr. Dickerman did not appear at the pre-motion conference scheduled for December 12, 2012, and did not contact the Court to explain his absence after the Court attempted to reach him that day. Finally, Mr. Dickerman did not respond to the Court’s Order to Show Cause by December 27, 2012.
Shlomo boasts an Avvo rating of 6.5, which is considered “Good.” That said, his only client review is less than stellar and reflects Judge Mauskopf’s opinion:
Mr Dickerman is my present attorney. He is a terrible lawyer who takes his sweet time in handling a case. He has failed in protecting me. He lied to me on several occasions. He will not return calls and delays Emails. He has not looked for my best interests. I regret hiring him. please do not use him.
Bad lawyering apparently is enough to get the attention of the FBI these days.
By the summer, federal authorities had become suspicious. At a seemingly routine hearing in July on a class-action case that the suspect had filed two months earlier, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation quietly observed the proceedings. One of the agents had already met the real Stephen G. Dickerman, the affidavit says.
Two weeks later, two F.B.I. agents, posing as potential clients, arrived at the Brighton 11th Street address of the suspect.
Taking notes on a legal pad, that man said he would represent the clients for a $10,000 retainer and $400 an hour. He handed over his business card; it read “Shlomo G. Dickerman, JD, LLM, Esq.”
An LL.M.? Why? Stephen G. Dickerman graduated from Duke Law and has no LL.M. Shlomo Dickerman just added an LL.M. from NYU when he applied to the EDNY.
At the moment, the identity of Shlomo Dickerman remains unconfirmed, but there is a theory:
[Lan] Nguyen, the prosecutor, pointed out that when the defendant was arrested, he had a New York State driver’s license in the name of Steven H. Dickman. That man, she said, “appears to be a disbarred attorney with a criminal history”: two convictions on grand larceny charges, of which one resulted in a three-year prison sentence.
Well at least he might have been an attorney. You really shouldn’t be expected to pay someone $400/hour to do nothing unless they’ve really gotten a law degree.
Judge Mauskopf’s benchslap is on the next page if you’re interested.
Brooklyn Lawyer Arrested For Not Actually Being a Lawyer [Gawker]
Man is accused of stealing lawyer’s identity by duping attorney registration officials [ABA Journal]
Legal Clients Called Him Shlomo; U.S. Calls Him a Fraud [New York Times]
Nine days ago, Judge Richard Kopf wrote an article about the Supreme Court’s decision in Hobby Lobby that suggested, “[a]s the kids say, it is time for the Court to stfu.” It was a good post, but something that seemed of such little controversy that we relegated it to an in-blurb mention within Non-Sequiturs.
And then all manner of shock and hand-wringing commenced.
It’s not the first time a federal judge received criticism for speaking out. Are jurists like Judge Kopf out of control?
I’m not going to wade much into defending his precise statement on Hobby Lobby. The attacks on it are so full of sanctimony that they deserve short shrift. But what is it with the disrespecting of “lower” federal judges, reprimanding them like disobedient children, simply because they have opinions?
Judge Kopf’s statement has been plastered all over the place, but few place it in its appropriate context:
Next term is the time for the Supreme Court to go quiescent — this term and several past terms have proven that the Court is now causing more harm (division) to our democracy than good by deciding hot button cases that the Court has the power to avoid. As the kids say, it is time for the Court to stfu.
That’s pretty mainstream analysis punctuated by a fun bit of Internet lingo. What it isn’t is a signal that Judge Kopf is about to go rogue and disrespect established precedent. He would — I presume — rule for the plaintiff if a case indistinguishable from Hobby Lobby entered his courtroom. It would be a ruling replete with dicta about the problems with that decision, but it would uphold Hobby Lobby nonetheless.
Judges are capable of walking and chewing gum simultaneously after all.
It’s actually embarrassing for us as a culture that Judge Kopf is getting more flack for offering concise analysis of the legal landscape — which is kind of his job — than he got for the “ignorant sluts” fashion advice column, which fairly deserved critique.
Does his “stfu” comment show profound and unacceptable disrespect for the Supreme Court? Who cares? Judges aren’t asked to swear their allegiance to the members of the Supreme Court like they’re superior officers. Judges must respect precedent, they don’t have to agree with it. On the flip side, Justice Scalia can go around fanning the flames for violent militia members by suggesting that people launch an armed revolution against the United States Constitution he’s sworn to uphold. How is that not a bigger ethical breach than intimating that the Supreme Court made a poor policy decision that harms the democratic process? Oh, that’s right, because the Supreme Court is not subject to the same ethical rules as the rest of the judiciary. What’s up with that? Is everyone so fixated on the primacy of THE SUPREME COURT that we consistently ignore their breaches of common sense ethical obligations and blow out of proportion the fact that a trial court judge has access to Urban Dictionary?
Reading between the lines of the criticisms, Judge Kopf’s crime was daring to — in a conversational setting — question the Supreme Court’s infallibility. Justice Scalia isn’t the Pope as much as he might want to be. Implicit in that is the idea that judges beyond The Nine lack the right to hold legal opinions. That seems to run contrary to how they got their jobs in the first place (excluding the pure patronage appointments).
If we really believe federal judges are among the finest legal minds in the country (let’s operate under that assumption for the moment), then why cut them off at the knees whenever they express an opinion on the development of the law? Judge Jed Rakoff got reversed for having the gall to suggest that “Chevron” means less than “letting revolving door sycophants set favorable settlements for the companies they want to work for” and drew some criticism for penning a smart piece about how the government has dropped the ball on financial crimes. Judge Shira Scheindlin got removed from stop-and-frisk cases for suggesting that she treated both parties equally rather than leaning toward the government. So obviously the law couldn’t benefit from these voices. In the words of Judge Kopf, district court judges “are the TTT of the federal judiciary.”
Even the next tier up is getting flak for being too big for their breeches. Motorola, represented by Tom Goldstein of Goldstein & Russell (and SCOTUSblog fame), has filed a motion objecting to a decision by a panel that included Judge Posner. Based on the Motorola brief — which is admittedly a one-sided account — it does sound like Judge Posner may be going a tad afield by converting a motion ruling into a decision on the merits. At least he’s consistent — he’s never really felt that he’s an inferior court. But the motion also criticizes Judge Posner for not taking the word of the Solicitor General’s office at face value. The Supreme Court gets to make snide comments about the government and the quality of its representation all the time, and it’s not somehow a travesty when a lower court — excuse me, Judge Posner, an “intermediate appellate court” — does the same thing.
It’s more than just the civic importance of understanding that judges have thoughts and opinions, it’s about an unwarranted excision of the best and brightest from the evolution of the law. When the Supreme Court gave the judiciary the power of judicial review in a fit of judicial activism (yeah, that’s right textualists and originalists, that’s what Marbury was — so to be faithful to your philosophies you should really never rule on these cases), it didn’t vest that power solely within itself.
Last week there were rumors that Judge Kopf may give up blogging over this incident. He’s already done that once and mercifully reversed himself.
We’re hoping he doesn’t ever stfu. Remembering Alexander Bickel’s passive virtues and the Hobby Lobby cases Motorola to 7th Circuit: Make Judge Posner follow the rules [Reuters] Pandora’s Supreme Court [Huffington Post] Err on the Side of Allowing Speech [New York Times] Judge Might Give Up Blogging After Telling Supreme Court To ‘STFU’ [Business Insider] Earlier: Justice Scalia Literally Encourages People To Commit Treason Judge Rakoff Rips The Government For Dropping The Ball On Financial Crimes Ouch! So What Does That Make Magistrate Judges? Federal Judge Suggests That Women Lawyers Not Dress Like ‘Ignorant Sluts’
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday called for impeachment of a Nevada judge who cited a clerical error and reduced a child molester’s sentence to one year in prison.
The judge, Brent Adams of Washoe County, is one of the most respected legal authorities in Nevada, the Reno Gazette-Journal reports. He is a member of the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline and a faculty member of the National Judicial College. Adams is not seeking re-election this year.
Adams had sentenced Isaac Onsurez, 69, to 10-years-to-life in prison on March 12. A week later, citing a “clerical error,” Adams changed the sentence to a year in jail and five years of probation. He did not provide prosecutors with a more detailed explanation, the Gazette-Journal says.
Onsurez pleaded guilty to lewdness with a minor in December after prosecutors accused him of committing more than 100 sex acts with a child during a two-year-period in the late 1990s, the story says. The girl was 6 years old when the abuse started, according to the Gazette-Journal. The plea deal had indicated a sentence of 10 years to life.
At the time Onsurez committed the crime a probation sentence was allowed under Nevada law. Current law calls for a minimum 10-year sentence.
O’Reilly called for impeachment, although the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline has the power to remove judges. “This guy acts like he is the Roman emperor out there, this judge,” O’Reilly said on his television show on Tuesday. “This guy should be impeached immediately.”
The judicial commission can remove a judge for willful misconduct, failing to perform the duties of office or intemperance, the newspaper says. In this case, Adams’ sentence was permitted by law, the story says.
Paul Deyhle, executive director of Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline, spoke with the Gazette-Journal about the commission’s authority. "If a judge makes a decision and follows the law, whether right or wrong, our commission does not have jurisdiction to address those issues," he said. Updated at 3:44 p.m. to clarify the age of the victim when the abuse began.
The psychological term for it is The Online Disinhibition Effect, a condition brought on by the interlocking effects of dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority. This is the condition that leads people otherwise aware of proper social and professional behavior to go off the rails and say things they would know not to broadcast publicly if the world could easily identify them.
That’s what happened to a self-identified judge who routinely posted under a pseudonym on a popular college sports board.
And now it looks like we’ve cracked the code and figured out who this judge is, and if we’re right, he’s a rising star.
Or he was before this….
The alleged culprit in this case goes by “Geauxjudge” and he’s an LSU fan. Obviously. Because literally every LSU fan thinks using “Geaux” is the height of clever. Anyway, Geauxjudge posts on the LSU fan board Tiger Droppings, which is actually a pretty great board if you’re trying to stay atop the cesspool of recruiting violations that is the SEC. It’s no replacement for taking time to listen to the Paul Finebaum Show every day so you can be on top of the next violent tree murder, but it’s a good start.
Anyway, Geauxjudge posts stuff like this:
Delightful.
Judge Mike Maggio
Unfortunately for him, he also posted a good deal of thinly-veiled personal information, including his education history, leading Matt Campbell of Blue Hog Report to conclude that Geauxjudge was actually Arkansas Circuit Court judge and Court of Appeals candidate Judge Mike Maggio. If you think that posting off-color sexism is “no big deal,” then you’re (a) a troglodyte or (b) a 12-year-old. However, putting aside whether or not this is a big deal generally (it is), this is someone holding themselves out — if quasi-anonymously — as a judge who presides over divorce proceedings to revel in a deep disdain for women whose husbands cheat on them.
Shut up, honey, and be a better cook. Jesus. This sort of brash admission of prejudice in cases he admits to regularly seeing should disqualify him from his post. On the plus side for Geauxjudge, Adam Carolla has been looking for someone to help him bring back The Man Show.
Now for a melange of awful:
There are many more such posts over at Blue Hog Report.
We’ve defended judges speaking their minds before, but this is just a big ball of unprofessionalism. And while I got some flack for not respecting professionalism when I recently wrote about business attire — even though I didn’t bash business attire, but rather the Me Generation refugees who want mandatory business attire back so they can parade their conspicuous consumption around the office like a pathetic status symbol — professionalism is actually kind of important, especially for a judge. It’s hard to trust the judicial temperament of someone who not only thinks this stuff but thinks it’s acceptable to say this stuff in a civilized society. I guess we can all just be thankful he shared his bigotry with the public so if he is shown to be Judge Maggio, the voters can respond accordingly.
Or perhaps you don’t care about sexism, racism or homophobia, and want to see some good old fashioned judicial ethics violations!
Hm. Probably shouldn’t be telling people that. Charlize Theron did indeed adopt a baby around that time, so the timing certainly works out.
Oops, looks like some veiled racism got in there anyway.
While this story only broke yesterday afternoon, it didn’t take long for this bit of investigative reporting to trigger something more formal: Judge Maggio is facing a Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission investigation into his link to Geauxjudge.
The JDDC is aware of the allegations that were reported today. Under Rule 7C(3) I can confirm the pendency of an investigation by this agency. The judge will have full due process rights during our litigation of this matter. This office will not have further public statement until the case concludes with dismissal, agreed resolution or public charges.
David J. Sachar, Executive Director
In another sad but comical twist, since the investigation came to light, Geauxjudge has been deleting his most inflammatory comments from Tiger Droppings, apparently failing to understand the power of screenshots. Shouldn’t a judge understand spoliation?
We still can’t say for certain the identity of Geauxjudge, but if it turns out that this is Judge Maggio, the Arkansas Times notes that it wouldn’t be the first time he’s raised ethical questions.
He brings a record already marked by a past discipline by the state Ethics Commission for expenditure of campaign money on personal expenses. He was also written up by the Conway Log Cabin Democrat for flashing a badge at a state trooper during a speeding stop. And he’s had a variety of financial mishaps — tax liens and a mortgage in arrears. We’ve focused on him more recently for a remarkable write-down of a unanimous jury verdict in a nursing home malpractice case. He said he was shocked by the $5 million verdict for pain and suffering of a woman left untreated by the nursing home and reduced the award to $1 million. He’s received a third of the money he’s raised for his campaign so far from nursing homes, with help from UCA lobbyist Gilbert Baker, who contends he’s working on his own time as a bundler of money for conservative judicial candidates and Republican legislative candidates.
There’s even video of that traffic stop where he tried to pull, I guess his, Judge Badge™.
Is Judge Maggio made of teflon? Because that’s not the record you expect to see from someone who was, at least until now, considered a viable candidate for higher office. Judge Maggio has not given a public statement yet, but conservative blogger Jason Tolbert had this to say earlier this morning:
Nine days ago, Judge Richard Kopf 
The psychological term for it is 
