Judge ousted 1 year, fined $50,000 for harassment
In one of the harshest punishments it has ever handed down, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct suspended a Plymouth County judge yesterday for a year without pay for sexually harassing two female court workers. The commission also fined him $50,000 and barred him from ever sitting in any court in the county.
The suspension of Plymouth Juvenile Court Judge Robert Murray, who had been the first justice of the Plymouth County juvenile courts, is believed to be the longest issued by the commission and the fine one of the largest.
Murray, who has been on paid leave for almost a year, agreed to the punishment and apologized to the court officer and court clerk, with whom he recently settled harassment claims for a total of $250,000.
''I am very sorry for the pain, anguish, and apprehension I caused both court employees," he said in a statement issued by the commission. ''I am very sorry for the embarrassment and expense to the Trial Court, and I apologize to my judicial colleagues for what I have done. I have already apologized to my family for the pain and anguish that has resulted from this period of my life."
The settlement came before the commission could have filed formal charges against Murray, which would likely have led to public disciplinary hearings that may have profoundly embarrassed the judiciary.
The two-page statement described Murray's misdeeds only as ''inappropriate conduct directed toward two female employees." But other court employees have said Murray made inappropriate phone calls to the clerk, Michelle Goldberg, and gave the officer, Barbara Brawders, an unwanted kiss.
Murray, 60, said in the statement that during the last six months of 2004, when the misconduct occurred, he had medical and personal problems that ''led me to act in a way inconsistent with my prior life and conduct."
He sought professional help, he said, and described his current state of health as ''stable."
Under the terms of the settlement, Murray must participate in ''appropriate treatment and will be monitored" by the commission. After next November when the suspension is up, Murray could be transferred by the chief justice for juvenile courts to a court outside Plymouth County. He also will forfeit his accumulated vacation time, the commission said.
Murray, a former Plymouth prosecutor who usually sat in Brockton, could not be reached for comment at his home in Plymouth. The judge's current lawyer, Michael E. Mone, declined to discuss the settlement, saying its terms barred him from doing so.
Neither Goldberg nor Brawders returned phone calls seeking comment. Brawders's lawyer, Lynn G. Weissberg, said her client might have discussed the allegations if the matter had gone to formal hearings but would not do so now because it has been settled.
Thomas Lawton, a lawyer who practices juvenile law in Plymouth County and appeared before Murray scores of times, said he knew about the allegations against Murray only from news accounts.
If they were true, he said, Murray deserves the punishment because judges ''assume ultra-responsibility for their behavior."
Brawders and Goldberg, he said, are ''extremely fine women and great employees of the trial court." But he said he felt bad for the judge, whom he characterized as a decent and fair jurist who showed great sensitivity to troubled youngsters who appeared in his courtroom.
Murray, who worked in the Plymouth district attorney's office from 1977 to 1995, was appointed to the bench 10 years ago by Governor William F. Weld and was earning $112,777 a year.
The punishment is one of the stiffest handed out by the commission. One of the longest previous suspensions, said Jill Pearson, executive director of the commission, occurred in 1997 when New Bedford District Court Judge John A. Markey was suspended for three months without pay after he got involved in a neighbor's domestic violence case.
The fine is among the largest disclosed by the commission. In 1989, Judge Robert M. Ford, first judge of the Norfolk Probate and Family Court, was fined $75,000 for taking funds from a public charity. Although he was allowed to remain a judge, he was stripped of his administrative duties.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com 