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HARRISBURG -- A judge who resigned and pleaded no contest this summer to
misdemeanor criminal charges for groping a 10-year-old girl [his daughter]
at a teen pop concert told a judicial-conduct panel yesterday that banning
him for life from serving on the bench would be "overkill."
"I can tell you one thing. And that is I did not molest" the victim, said
former Monroe County Judge Mark Pazuhanich during a half-hour sanctions
hearing before the Court of Judicial Discipline.
Pazuhanich, 48, resigned as a judge in July after pleading no contest to
indecent assault, corruption of minors and other offenses the day his jury
trial was set to begin. He received 10 years of probation and must register
as a sex offender.
A lifetime ban from the bench, "I would suggest is overkill," he told the
panel. He said he does not foresee ever running for judge again, but argued
that voters have followed the case and should be allowed to make their own
decisions.
"To say that that electorate can never vote for me or someone in my position
is really an insult to the average American voter," Pazuhanich said.
He told the panel that the night of the concert in Wilkes-Barre by teen
singer Hilary Duff he drank three to five ounces of alcohol and took muscle
relaxants, which he called "an incredibly foolish decision on my part."
The November 2003 concert, which he attended with his daughter, occurred
less than a month after the then-Monroe County district attorney had been
elected judge.
Asked after yesterdays' hearing about the apparent contradiction between
pleading no contest to the crimes and then denying he molested the victim,
Pazuhanich said, "I'm not trying to have my cake and eat it, too."
"There's a very involved answer to that, which I'll explain later," he told
reporters.
Earlier, Judicial Conduct Board chief counsel Joseph A. Massa Jr. urged the
five-member court to institute the lifetime ban, saying appropriate words to
describe Pazuhanich's behavior at the concert included "vile, outrageous,
rank, gross, flagrant, atrocious, perverse, degenerate."
"His conduct unfortunately has left an indelible stain on the dignity and
integrity of the judiciary," Massa said.
Pazuhanich, who did not hear a single case before being placed on
administrative leave, declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy last week. The current
Monroe County district attorney wants the state Supreme Court to force
Pazuhanich to repay more than $60,000 in salary and benefits he collected as
judge.
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