Claudette Newman, a judge who wags ... another judge

I already wrote on this blog about the outrageous behavior of Claudette Newman, the law clerk of Chenango County Supreme Court Justice Kevin M. Dowd in several cases.

Ms. Newman is allowed by this judge to butt into proceedings and give her suggestions and testimony on record, engage, without any discipline, in ex parte communications with parties and witnesses in the proceedings, sign orders on behalf of the judge and threaten attorneys who questioned propriety of her behavior.

Little did I know that Claudette Newman, the woman who, apparently, wags Judge Dowd, is also herself a judge.

In 2008 Claudette Newman announced in the press that she is running for the seat of a local town justice in the Town of Butternuts, Otsego County, New York.

In that announcement she said the following:

(1) that she "served" Chenango's courts "providing legal analysis, research and communication services for multiple benches".

(2) that "it is because of [her] desire to serve and make a difference in any way that [she] can that she became a lawyer", 

(3) that "that goal led [her] to many forms of community service", 

AND - here is the kicker

(4) that she may be leaving her position as a law clerk to pursue her candidacy as the judge in the Town of Butternuts.

Fast-forward 7 years, in 2015, Claudette Newman is still a judge in the Town of Butternuts (Otsego County), and did not leave her position as a law clerk to Judge Dowd (Chenango County Supreme Court Justice who is assigned to cases in Otsego County).

There was another court employee who was, at the same time, a secretary to a judge and a clerk to her husband judge in Otsego County - Stacy Johansen.  Her husband no longer works with a clerk, so apparently that was seen as a conflict of interest.

Nothing can be seen as a conflict of interest by Claudette Newman.

It did not appear awkward to Judge Newman to "serve" as a judge in the lower court and as a law clerk to a judge who is assigned to the court of appellate jurisdiction to that lower court (the Otsego County Court).

In fact, in 2012, when Judge Dowd ran for re-election, he ran in Otsego County, too.

Apparently, Claudette Newman did not consider this situation awkward.

As to Ms. Newman's "goal to serve the public", when will people stop pushing this "service" thing into people's face when all they want is money and power?

Claudette Newman reportedly earned as the law clerk of Judge Dowd, as of 2012, $132,809.00, 1.7 times greater than New York judicial employees and 2.8 times greater than all New York employees.

Seethroughny.net shows that Claudette Newman earned $133,535.00 in 2014 as a law clerk for Judge Dowd.

It was hard to leave this position, as she said she would in 2008 when she was running for a judge in Butternuts, to earn a meager salary of a town justice.

So, now Newman has power to sign search and arrest warrants, as a Butternuts judge, and at the same time she has the ear of a Supreme Court justice in that same judicial district who may be assigned to the Otsego County court, appellate jurisdiction to her decisions from Butternuts.

Claudette Newman "has the ear" of Judge Dowd to the point of Judge Dowd announcing her at conferences as "his brain" (which is not far from the truth, the way he acts), allows her to sign his orders, as I recently learnt in a case, allows her to offer unsworn witness testimony in court proceedings, and punishes those litigants who dare to point out her misconduct.

And all of that "to serve the public"?

At the price tag of over $133,000?

And what kind of shining service it is.

A neat arrangement, isn't it?

And I wonder whether it is "the goal to serve the public" that inspired Ms. Newman to run for a judge, or the evidence, while working with Judge Dowd, of unrestricted power and unrestricted abuse of power that judges are allowed to engage in in this country.

From what I know of Ms. Newman as a law clerk, to say that her "legal research" skills leave much to be desired is to say nothing, and the same can be said about her integrity, at least judging by her documented misconduct in several court proceedings that I am aware of.

And - my sympathies to the residents of the town of Butternuts and litigants appearing in judge Newman's court, especially with the new evidence, as reflected in my previous blog post, that this supposedly "honorable" person, Claudette Newman, is destroying evidence of her misconduct by erasing evidence that she listed three court stenographers as her Facebook friends, and hid her Facebook profile after I ran my blog about it.