Watchdog Conflict Claimed

The chairman of California’s judicial watchdog agency said Thursday that his panel will hire an independent examiner to investigate charges that its director engaged in conflict of interest during a pending disciplinary action against a Sonoma County judge.

Michael A. Kahn, chairman of the Commission on Judicial Performance, said the investigator will look into allegations by a Los Angeles lawyer against Victoria Henley, the agency’s director and chief counsel.

The attorney said Henley failed to disclose that her husband has pending litigation against Superior Court Judge Patricia Gray, who is being investigated by the commission in connection with claims of judicial misconduct.

A spokesperson at the commission in San Francisco said Henley was not available to comment.

Kahn, a San Francisco lawyer, said the commission has not yet hired the examiner. Nor did he say how the commission would deal with the pending disciplinary action against Gray.

The claim concerning Henley was lodged by attorney Mark Geragos, who is defending Gray against commission charges that she unfairly accused a 1995 election opponent of condoning actions of child molesters, robbers and those who kill police officers. The opponent was a deputy public defender who represented indigent criminal defendants.

Geragos has demanded that the disciplinary charges against Gray, who lost a judicial reelection attempt last year, be dismissed.

A commission hearing on Gray’s case had been scheduled for next month, but was postponed Wednesday because of Geragos’ accusations against Henley.

The claims are rooted in a malpractice suit filed against Gray in August 1999 by Henley’s husband, Alameda County lawyer Michael Boli. The suit concerned Gray’s actions as a lawyer representing two children in 1994, the year before she became a judge.

In December 2000, the commission announced that it had begun formal disciplinary proceedings against Gray in connection with her election campaign. In news releases about the disciplinary case, Henley was listed as the contact person.

Geragos charges that Henley did not disclose her husband’s involvement in the civil suit, and that the failure tainted the disciplinary investigation against Gray.

This week Geragos wrote Kahn, saying that Henley and her husband “have leveraged the [commission] prosecution to enhance their anticipated payday in the civil suit.” As evidence, Geragos submitted a letter that Boli wrote to Gray’s civil attorney in which Boli mentioned the commission’s disciplinary action and urged him to reach a settlement. Geragos said the mention of the disciplinary action in the letter was improper.