Massachusetts judge accused of helping man evade ICE faces disciplinary hearing
BOSTON, June 9 (Reuters) - A Massachusetts judge who was criminally charged during the first Trump administration with helping a migrant slip out from a backdoor of her courthouse to avoid arrest by federal immigration agents faced a judicial misconduct hearing on Monday that could determine if she can remain on the bench.
A court-appointed hearing officer in Boston began to hear arguments and testimony as he weighed whether to find Judge Shelley Joseph engaged in misconduct based on the same actions at issue in the criminal case, which prosecutors dropped in 2022 after Republican President Donald Trump's first term ended.
That criminal case mirrors one the U.S. Department of Justice brought earlier this year against Hannah Dugan, a Wisconsin judge who has pleaded not guilty to helping a migrant evade an arrest outside her courtroom.
Prosecutors dropped the 2019 indictment against Joseph in exchange for an agreement that the judge refer herself to disciplinary authorities. The Massachusetts Judicial Conduct Commission filed charges against her in December.
"This case is about the integrity, impartiality and independence of the Massachusetts judiciary and the appearance of the integrity, impartiality and independence every judge must uphold," Judith Fabricant, special counsel for the commission, told the hearing office, Denis McInerney.
She said the case turned on what was said during a 52 second sidebar proceeding on April 2, 2018, in the Newton, Massachusetts, district court concerning a Dominican man that the judge impermissibly allowed to go unrecorded.
The commission's chief witness, defense attorney David Jellinek, testified he had requested the judge go off-the-record because what he was going to discuss with the judge was "right on the edge of acceptable."
Jellinek had just convinced a local prosecutor to dismiss a charge against his client accusing him of being a fugitive from justice based on a warrant issued out of Pennsylvania because they had the "wrong guy," he said.
Because he only then faced two misdemeanor drug charges, Jellinek's client was set to be released on personal recognizance. But Jellinek said he knew an agent with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement was waiting in the lobby on the first floor and planned to arrest the man if he was released.
Jellinek testified that Joseph appeared "open to helping solve the problem" and that during the off-record sidebar he asked the judge to send his client downstairs to a court lockup area and allow him to accompany him, which would allow the man to leave through a backdoor.
"To the best of my recollection, she said then, 'That's what we'll do,'" Jellinek said.
But Elizabeth Mulvey, a lawyer for Joseph, disputed that account. She said Joseph allowed the man to be sent to lockup to facilitate a private conversation between him and his attorney and that she assumed ICE would "then do its job."
Nobody told her the man "had gone out of the back door," Mulvey said. "She knew nothing about it."
She called into question Jellinek's credibility, saying his story had shifted over the years and that he was previously granted by federal prosecutors immunity in exchange for testifying against Joseph.
She said that while Joseph was viewed by some as a "folk hero" and others as a "criminal" because of the allegations against her, the media and public at large wrongly believed 100% that she did let the migrant out the backdoor.
"Judge Joseph, at the end of this proceeding, will be seen in a very different light than the way she has been vilified in the media," Mulvey said.
Read more:
Massachusetts judge accused of misconduct by impeding immigrant's arrest
U.S. drops charges against Massachusetts judge in immigration arrest case
Massachusetts judge can be prosecuted for blocking immigration arrest, court rules
Judge accused of blocking ICE arrest tells court she can't be prosecuted
Massachusetts judge loses bid to dismiss ICE arrest obstruction charges
Massachusetts judge faces federal charges for blocking immigration arrest
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