AUBURN — An Androscoggin County Superior Court judge is expected to preside over the disciplinary hearing later this month of York County Judge of Probate Robert Nadeau. He is accused of violating the code of judicial conduct by linking his private law practice to a judicial website and by creating a Facebook page that appeared to be the “official” page of the York County probate judge.
Nadeau has run afoul of the Committee on Judicial Responsibility and Disability before.
In 2007, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court agreed with the committee that Nadeau had knowingly misrepresented facts about two of his campaign opponents in the 2004 Democratic primary. He was censured by the court for the violation and was suspended from his duties as judge for one month.
As a practicing Maine attorney, Nadeau was disciplined by a single justice of the high court with a public reprimand for having had a sexual relationship with a divorce client in 2003, for being discourteous to a Maine Superior Court judge and for having contacted the client of an opposing attorney.
In the new complaint, Nadeau is accused of misusing the Internet as well as three additional violations of the code of judicial conduct.
In a report from the committee to the state’s highest court, Nadeau had made statements in a letter to Tyler Smith, a lawyer representing Lynann Frydrych, against whom Nadeau had filed a complaint for protection from harassment in York District Court.
The committee concluded that Nadeau had threatened Smith in a letter and made use of an electronic message he obtained in his official capacity as a judge that he used for his private interests. The committee also found that Nadeau made assertions of categorical bias by referring to the District Court judge who handled his lawsuit against Smith’s client as “very female-biased and unknowing.”
Active-Retired Justice Robert Clifford is scheduled to hear the matter in two weeks. He is expected to forward his findings of fact to the full Maine Supreme Judicial Court, where oral arguments likely will be held.
Nadeau is represented by Stephen Wade, an attorney with the local firm Skelton, Tainter & Abbott.
cwilliams@sunmediagroup.net
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