Former judge accused of faking workload
Panel says ruse let him take time off
Former Broward Circuit Judge John Contini falsified his docket to give himself time to leave the courthouse, used his judicial assistant to conduct personal business and improperly disclosed family court information on social media, the state’s judicial watchdog alleged Tuesday.
Contini can’t be fired because he resigned this month, but that didn’t stop the Judicial Qualifications Commission from filing ethics charges against him.
The JQC announced its formal charges Tuesday, also accusing Contini of using his position to sign motions for connected friends.
Contini was first elected in 2014 and almost immediately ran into trouble with
the JQC for improperly advising a defense lawyer and cited for lashing out at prosecutors in court and unfairly criticizing an assistant attorney general.
Contini was formally reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court in early 2017. By then he had already transferred out of the criminal division and into the family division.
His sudden resignation on July 6 appears to be a tacit admission that he did not expect to professionally survive the latest allegations.
“You have instructed your Judicial Assistant to create dockets of fictitious cases or hearings on particular days of the week on which you planned to be absent from the courthouse,” wrote Alex Williams, assistant general counsel for the JQC.
The allegations specify that Contini was aware that some cases had been settled but that he failed to cancel hearings that had already been set, making it appear that he had a busy calendar while he was away from the courthouse.
While he was out of the office, he would ask his judicial assistant to send him documents to review and sign, according to the allegations.
The new charges also accuse Contini of having his judicial assistant pay his personal bills, make travel arrangements and even proofread a manuscript for him.
Contini declined to be interviewed for this article. A call to his attorney, David Rothman, was not immediately returned as of late Tuesday.
Judicial assistants are not supposed to act as personal secretaries for the judges they serve, according to the allegations.
The JQC can still ask the Florida Supreme Court to sanction Contini with a fine if the charges are upheld.
“Former Judge Contini’s conduct and behavior violated the canons governing judicial conduct,” Broward Chief Administrative Judge Jack Tuter said in an e-mailed statement. “That conduct and his resignation is not a reflection of the many fine judges working in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit.”
But attorney Bill Gelin, who runs a courthouse news and gossip blog that often serves as a sounding board for attorneys who criticize judges anonymously, said the charges against Contini, and his resignation, reflect a change in how the JQC typically deals with judges who quit under scrutiny.
“This is highly unusual, to go after a judge who has already resigned,” Gelin said. “Normally the JQC closes up shop after a resignation and the Florida Bar can decide what’s the next appropriate step, if any.”
Including Contini, 13 judges announced their resignations in 2018.