Former judge accused of harassment violated rules of conduct for attorneys, panel finds

Yahoo

18-02-2025

Feb. 17—The Maine bar has agreed to publicly admonish a former Bangor judge, but not to impose any discipline against him, for unwelcome comments he made to women at a professional conference.
Charles Budd was in charge of Bangor's drug treatment court in 2022 when he and several others in the program attended a multiday conference in Nashville. There, drug treatment counselor Samantha Pike said, Budd sexually harassed her several times.
Pike has previously said Budd appeared to drink more than what was appropriate while in Nashville, where he was surrounded by attorneys, counselors and probation officers he regularly oversaw in court. His sexual propositions and comments about Pike's appearance and that of other women made her uncomfortable when they returned to Maine, she has said.
Budd was placed on administrative leave that fall, according to the state judicial branch. When his term expired in early 2023, he chose not to reapply.
Budd did not respond to an email Monday afternoon seeking his reaction to the panel's decision.
On Friday, members of a disciplinary panel for the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar determined Budd had violated Maine's rules for professional conduct, specifically those barring any activity "prejudicial to the administration of justice."
Budd should have known his comments to Pike and others "would be construed as sexual advances or unwelcome," they said. The admonition is supposed to "send a message that comments and behavior of the type described here will not be tolerated."
"As a sitting judge, Budd was bound by the Maine Code of Judicial Conduct which requires judges to 'act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the ... integrity ... of the judiciary; to avoid impropriety; and to avoid the appearance of impropriety," two of the three panel members wrote.
But the board did not find that Budd had violated their rules against harassment, because his conduct occurred at a conference in Nashville and not in a more professional setting, like a courtroom or a law office.
Unlike the American Bar Association, Maine's standards don't address alleged harassment that might occur in "business or social activities in connection with the practice of law," the panel wrote. The members decided this is a "seemingly intentional omission."
The Maine bar panel's decision Friday does not make any findings on allegations that Budd treated women differently in his court, despite testimony about this from a Penobscot County prosecutor.
During a three-day hearing in October, the panel heard extensively from Budd, Pike and other witnesses from the Nashville trip.
Natasha Irving, a district attorney on the Midcoast, told the panel Budd had propositioned her during a brief encounter in Tennessee.
Pike and Irving sued Budd in November 2022 for his conduct on the Nashville trip. That complaint was dismissed in 2023 by U.S. District Judge Lance Walker, but the women were still waiting Monday to see whether the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upholds that dismissal.
Their attorney, Laura White, said her clients were pleased Budd was admonished but "feel strongly that the sanction was not severe enough for the conduct alleged." They disagreed with the panel's decision that this wasn't considered harassment under Maine's rules.
"Budd's conduct while attending the conference as a member of the Maine judiciary was intricately connected to the harassment that later continued in the courtroom and in chambers," White wrote in an email.
When Pike returned to Budd's court after the Nashville trip, she told the panel she had to bring a supervisor out of fear. Still, she said, Budd called her into his office and told her he was "making a lot of changes" at home. She took this to mean that Budd planned to leave his wife and pursue her.
She was so uncomfortable that she left court in the middle of the workday, which the panel acknowledged in its ruling.
"Reading between the lines, the Commission concluded that Budd's conduct in court was subjectively offensive to Pike, but not objectively offensive enough to be considered 'harassment,'" White said. "That conclusion is beyond disappointing given the full evidentiary record considered by the Commission."
The panel noted that Budd admitted to some of the alleged statements and disputed others. But he "never acknowledged that any of the conduct alleged ... was inappropriate and could reasonably be construed as making others uncomfortable."
Budd repeatedly cast his actions as getting to know other drug court participants "on a personal level," the panel members wrote, and "never acknowledged that his status as a judge created an imbalance of power."
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