Panel recommends judge be removed from bench

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Panel recommends judge be removed from bench

County News

Friday, 07 January 2011 13:25

Jim-Turner

Turner

By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer
The state panel that heard charges and testimony against Judge N. James Turner, who serves Osceola and Orange counties for the Ninth Judicial Circuit, is recommending he be removed from the bench for misconduct during his campaign, in court and with coworkers.
In an investigation spanning at least 16 months where charges against Turner, 64, were amended three separate times, the six-man panel, made up of judges, attorneys and lay persons, found Turner guilty in October of four of the 13 charges and part of a fifth, according to the Florida Judicial Qualifications Commission’s report released Tuesday.
The recommendation is now in the hands of the Florida Supreme Court, which will determine whether Turner will be permanently removed as a judge.
Turner was banned from the bench by Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. in April after several women complained about him.
One of the women, Heather Shelby, an Osceola County Courthouse employee, testified about the “unwanted” relationship she had with Turner for a year from February 2009 to February 2010.
The relationship is outlined in the commission’s 41-page report about how Turner called her cell phone while he was hearing cases; invited her to his chambers while he was wearing gym clothes and kissed her cheek as she left; and visited her desk on a separate floor six to seven times a day, prompting her to hide from him. The clerk’s office eventually moved Shelby’s desk and changed her phone number due to Turner’s frequent visitations.
The report stated Turner invented reasons to visit Shelby so often.
“It was just an everyday thing; or he was down at my desk continuously all day long ... I would turn around and he would be there,” Shelby testified.
One of those reasons was Shelby’s 12-year-old son, who has cancer. Shelby testified Turner constantly asked about her son’s treatment, offering to help with her family’s finances and requesting to visit her son in the hospital.
“He was constantly asking questions,” she testified.
In one instance last January, Turner overheard that Shelby was taking her son to a performance of “Phantom of the Opera” for his birthday. Shelby testified that Turner invited himself to the theater and showed up during intermission to take photographs of her and her son.
Turner’s story coincided with Shelby’s in some areas but differed in others.
Turner admits he invited Shelby to his chambers while in gym attire, closed the door and had a “friendly discussion.” He admitted to having personal conversations with her but that he had only sought Shelby out three times a day and that she had asked him to take photographs of her son.
The panel stated in the report they thought Turner “fixated” on Shelby and her son because he was lonely without taking into consideration “his attentions made Shelby uncomfortable and the source of gossip.” Neither Shelby nor the panel determined Turner’s attentions were romantic in nature.
Turner is considered an expert in employment law, according to the panel’s report, and the panelists were unconvinced he was “oblivious” to his superior position over Shelby and how his attention to her may have been perceived by others. The panel found him guilty on the charges related to Shelby.
Campaign funding issue
The panel’s report also detailed how Turner’s mother, Mignon Gordon, refinanced her Miami condominium and gave him $42,000 out of the $200,000 she borrowed, of which Turner, running for his first election, transferred $30,000 into his campaign account.
The $30,000 was in excess of the $500 limit on campaign contributions and had been deposited in early November 2008, after the “drop-dead” date for contributions. Turner was found guilty by the panel of this charge.
Turner also was charged with and found guilty of representing his mother as her attorney in her foreclosure suit out of Miami, violating the Judicial Code of Conduct, which prohibits a judge from acting as legal counsel for any family member.
Gordon was a victim of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and could no longer afford the refinanced rate on her mortgage with only her Social Security benefits, according to the report.
Gordon’s condominium faced foreclosure in September 2008. Turner said he was acting “in a panic” as the “dutiful son” to help his mother in her suit.
The panel’s report stated Turner “thought about this issue in advance and carefully crafted language (in correspondence with the other attorneys) to disguise the fact he was a circuit judge, indicating that they didn’t need to know.”
The panel added a separate charge of all the findings collectively that constituted “a pattern of misconduct which raises serious questions regarding (Turner’s) fitness to perform the duties” of a judge.