Colorado Supreme Court suspends appellate judge following complaint
The Colorado Supreme Court on Friday temporarily suspended Colorado Appeals Court Judge Laurie Booras with pay, pending an investigation of allegations raised by a man claiming to be her former lover — including that she called a fellow appeals judge “the little Mexican.”
In the court order, the Supreme Court said an investigation by the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline would remain confidential. However, The Denver Post received a copy of the complaint from the man claiming to be Booras’ former lover, John Sakowicz, of City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, Calif.
The high court gave Booras three weeks to
respond in writing explaining why “she should not continue to be suspended temporarily from any and all judicial duties pending the outcome of preliminary or formal proceedings,” the order says. The high court has not reached a conclusion about the validity of the allegations against Booras. The court, acting with approval of all seven justices, appointed three judges to serve as special masters to oversee the commission’s investigation: 19th Judicial
District Judge James F. Hartmann Jr., 12th Judicial District Judge Pattie P. Swift and Senior Judge Gregory J. Hobbs.
All proceedings of the three judges will likewise remain confidential “unless and until a recommendation for sanctions or a recommendation for approval of a stipulated resolution (is) filed with the court.”
Contacted about the allegations, Booras, communicating through Colorado Judicial Branch spokesman Jon Sarche, indicated she would not comment. Sarche declined to comment about the order temporarily suspending Booras.
Asked whether it was common procedure for the court to suspend a judge in response to a complaint, Sarche said: “It’s not very common.”
Sakowicz filed the complaint with the judicial commission on March 9 accusing Booras of “impropriety off the bench.” He wrote that Booras sexually harassed him and committed adultery and a litany of other public and private indiscretions. Sakowicz also provided copies of an email in which Booras referred to fellow Appeals Court Judge Terry Fox as “the little Mexican.”
“Given the national awareness of sexual harassment, as demonstrated by the #MeToo movement, I am enclosing a few examples of unsolicited emails of a sexual nature from Judge Booras,” Sakowicz wrote in the complaint.
Sakowicz is a former deputy for the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office. He said he served on the Board of the Mendocino County Employee Retirement Association as a public trustee and is a bonded fiduciary of a $600 million pension fund.
In a Sept. 30, 2016, email, Booras wrote that she was stalking Sakowicz’s family, the complaint says. He accuses her of sending numerous sexually explicit email messages that he and Booras exchanged during their 10-year affair to Sakowicz’s wife after he broke off the relationship with the judge.
“This email exchange with my wife hurt her deeply and resulted in my wife filing for divorce last month,” Sakowicz wrote. “For years, Booras threatened me with such exposure of our affair to my wife if I did not leave my wife. Booras’ behavior could be interpreted as coercive and extortionary.”
Booras made a “crude” drawing of Sakowicz’s family, including him, his wife, his two sons and three dogs, and mailed it to his home, he wrote.
“Booras was obsessed with me after a failed relationship. She was angry and abusive that I would not have sex with her, nor meet with her. She made the drawing to embarrass me. She made the drawing to intimidate me. … Booras’ behavior — especially the drawing — frightened me,” the letter says.
Sakowicz also accuses the judge of feeding him private financial information about clerks who worked for her and failing to recuse herself in an oiland-gas case even though her son is a financial analyst in the fracking industry. He accuses Booras of giving legal advice to the same son in a fraudulent scheme to buy an affordable housing unit for which he should have never qualified.
Sakowicz wrote that he and Booras had sex in public venues at least twice, including in the Pearl Street neighborhood of Denver in the back seat of her car.
“For Booras to deny any such lewd and lascivious behavior under oath in an investigation by the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline would be perjury,” his complaint says.
Booras grew up in Lawton, Okla. She graduated from the University of Tex- as School of Law in 1982 and began her legal career at the Texas attorney general’s office defending against federal habeas corpus actions filed by state prisoners. From March 1985 to November 1990, she served as an assistant district attorney in the Travis County district attorney’s office in Austin, Texas, and the Bexar County district attorney’s office in San Antonio.
In 1991, Booras began working in the Colorado attorney general’s office in the appellate division, and she was promoted to first assistant attorney general in 2000. She served on the Colorado Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules of Criminal Procedure from 2004 to 2008.