Timing of allegations against Judge Ovalles questioned

WARWICK — The clerk at the center of judicial misconduct allegations against District Court Judge Rafael A. Ovalles never told the court’s chief judge about what she considered to be inappropriate sexual conduct by Ovalles until after a volatile courtroom incident in July 2014.

District Court Chief Judge Jeanne E. LaFazia told the Commission on Judicial Tenure and Discipline on Thursday that clerk Karen Kanelos had complained to her about Ovalles’ treatment of staff and lawyers, but never mentioned twice seeing him in chambers with his pants unzipped and his hands in his underpants.

“That is correct. She never s a i d t h a t , ” LaFazia said in response to questions from lead defense lawyer Mark Berthiaume.

LaFazia took the stand for a third day in the commission hearing into allegations that Ovalles violated the canons of judicial ethics and brought his judicial office into serious disrepute. He faces accusations of sexually harassing females; demeaning those who appeared before him; and failing to grasp basic legal concepts.

Ovalles, the state’s first Hispanic judge, strongly disputes the charges. He has dismissed Kanelos’ account of finding him in his chambers with his hands in his pants as absolutely false.

The issues between Ovalles and Kanelos were long brewing, testimony has showed, but came to a head on July 28, 2014, due to an apparent misunderstanding. Ovalles asked her to change the date stamp on a court document he thought had been incorrectly marked; Kanelos thought he was asking her to falsify a record.

After shaking her head in disagreement, Kanelos moved to put it on the audio court record that Ovalles asked her to change the date. Ovalles immediately called a recess.

Kanelos then sought out LaFazia, who was filling in at the court in Kent County. Kanelos self-reported her actions, LaFazia said.

“I viewed it as inappropriate...,” LaFazia said. “If there was a problem, it should have been addressed off the record.... Karen believed there was a problem.”

LaFazia went to speak with Ovalles, knowing “he would not be happy, understandably so.” But she said she never spoke with him because he had returned to the bench, and she assigned chief clerk Stephen Waluk and court administrator Kevin Spina to sort out the matter. “It was a clerk disciplinary issue at that point.”

N o t l o n g a f t e r w a r d , LaFazia learned that Kanelos was going to file a complaint against Ovalles with the commission, she said, and stopped having frequent counseling sessions with the judge. Kanelos had added inappropriate sexual conduct by Ovalles to her complaints.

Berthiaume asked LaFazia why she didn’t file a complaint with the commission herself after Ovalles issued a ruling that appeared to confuse the concept of beyond a reasonable doubt with circumstantial evidence or inference.

She was not thinking about the commission at the time, she said. But why not, when lawyers complained about Ovalles and he appeared to misunderstand what constituted a conviction? Berthiaume asked. Again, LaFazia replied that she had no reason.

Under questioning by Marc DeSisto, who investigated for the commission, LaFazia said that in her first few years as chief judge she remained committed to counseling Ovalles. She hesitated in bringing a complaint to the commission, believing it would be a “horrible morale issue.”

“We needed Judge Ovalles to be a better judge,” she said. “The last thing I wanted to do is be sitting in this horrible chair.”

“I had a situation with Judge Ovalles that he’d been through the process. ... He was appointed to this life position by a governor,” LaFazia said.