Weekly Briefs: Infowars host Alex Jones' lawyer appeals $97K sanction; judge removed for sexual comments
F. Andino Reynal, a lawyer for Infowars founder Alex Jones, answers questions in the show-cause hearing for attorney Norm Pattis in Waterbury, Connecticut, on Aug. 25. Photo by H. John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media via the Associated Press.
Lawyer for Infowars founder Alex Jones sanctioned $97K
F. Andino Reynal, the lawyer for conspiracy theorist and Infowars founder Alex Jones, told HuffPost that he is confident that he will win reversal of a $97,169 sanction imposed against him. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of Texas sanctioned Reynal on April 24 for an alleged scheme to delay Jones’ defamation trial by initiating removal to federal court and relying on a bad-faith bankruptcy filing. “There was no bad faith here,” Reynal told HuffPost. He told another publication that he was not the attorney who filed the bankruptcy for three of Jones’ shell companies. (HuffPost, the News-Times, Gamble’s April 24 and Jan. 13 orders)
New Georgia law targets ‘rogue’ prosecutors
Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has signed legislation that creates a commission with the power to discipline and remove “rogue” district attorneys and solicitors general. Kemp said “far-left” prosecutors are “giving dangerous criminals get-out-of-jail-free cards.” Grounds for removal include incapacity, “willful and persistent” failure to carry out duties, and convictions for crimes of moral turpitude. (Law360, Bloomberg Law)
Town justice removed, partly for sexual comments
New York’s top court has removed a town justice in Guilford, New York, partly for sexual remarks. The judge, Judge Jeremy L. Persons, told a prosecutor and a public defender in court that he had a “three-way relationship with his ex-wife and another woman, but the two women cut him out of the relationship,” according to findings in the ethics case against him. Other misdeeds included placing his gun on the bench, failing to cooperate in an audit of his court records, ignoring traffic tickets, and displaying a bumper sticker that read “Boobies Make Me Smile.” (Law.com, Above the Law, the New York State Court of Appeals’ May 9 order)
Judge gets suspension for traffic-stop behavior
Judge C. Carter Williams of Moorefield in Hardy County, West Virginia, has been suspended without pay for six months for identifying himself as a judge during a traffic stop; becoming “visibly agitated;” and then calling a police lieutenant, the police chief, the former police chief, the chief judge and the mayor to complain. Williams will also have to comply with monitoring by the West Virginia Judicial & Lawyer Assistance Program for two years and pay a $5,000 fine. (Law.com, Courthouse News Service, the May 4 decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals)
