Tryst brings ethics penalty for two jurists

Two downstate judges who got tangled in an extramarital affair have been punished by a state judicial disciplinary panel.

In a ruling their lawyer said will “destroy the careers of some of the best judges in the circuit,” 11th Judicial Circuit Judge Scott D. Drazewski received a four-month unpaid suspension while fellow Bloomington judge Rebecca S. Foley was censured for an affair the commission said brought the judiciary “into disrepute.”

The affair amounted to a breach of judicial ethics after Drazewski failed to recuse himself from several cases involving Foley’s husband, insurance defense lawyer Joseph W. Foley, and then “actively misled” the chief judge about his ultimate decision to bow out of those cases.

Foley’s punishment stemmed from the finding that she knew her husband had cases in front of Drazewski but did not attempt to get him to recuse himself.

The panel, the Illinois Courts Commission, used the same language to characterize the problems with both of their actions — that both judges failed to behave “at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,” that they allowed personal relationships to influence judgment, and that their conduct “was prejudicial to the administration of justice and brought the judicial office into disrepute.”

The lawyer, Warren Lupel, special counsel at Much, Shelist P.C., who argued for the judges before the disciplinary panel said the decision goes against precedent. He said previous decisions have held judges can’t be found guilty of failure to recuse unless it’s proven by clear and convincing evidence the judge acted with actual prejudice.

“I’ll tell you the truth, I’m bitterly disappointed about the whole thing,” said Lupel. Not only did the panel “destroy the careers of some of the best trial judges in the circuit,” but it “ignored stare decisis. They ignored it. They absolutely ignored it.”

John N. Gallo, a Sidley, Austin LLP partner and outside trial counsel for the Judicial Inquiry Board, prosecuted the case.

“The board has reviewed the opinion and accepts and respects the commission’s decision,” Gallo said today.

Both Foley and Drazewski were married to other people when they began their affair in December 2010 at a conference in Washington, D.C. Throughout the next several weeks, colleagues testified, they began noticing increased text messages and meetings between the two.

But the ethical behavior called into question by judicial officials didn’t begin until Drazewski presided over a three-day trial in which Foley’s husband represented a defendant. He wound up entering damages for $40,337 against his client in the case and made substantive decisions in some other cases in which Foley’s husband had clients.

On Feb. 17, 2011, Foley’s husband confronted her about the affair, and she told Drazewski her husband wanted him to recuse himself from the seven other cases that Foley was involved in. He did so over the next two weeks, but when he told former chief judge Elizabeth A. Robb about the recusals, he did not mention the affair.

Later in 2011, when Robb received an anonymous letter detailing the affair, Drazewski blamed it on a disgruntled court employee, according to the complaint. He only acknowledged the affair in August 2011 after Robb confronted him again, but he did not tell her he had made substantive decisions in some of Joseph Foley’s cases.

The commission consisted of a group of seven judges from around the state, chaired by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier.

The ruling was unanimous. The commission directive specifically said Drazewski violated a high court rule that said he should recuse himself in cases in which his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” That rule is Supreme Court Rule 63(C)(1).

Foley was deemed to have violated Supreme Court Rule 63(B)(3)(a) by failing to initiate appropriate disciplinary action even though she know Drazewski’s conduct violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.

The 11th Judicial Circuit is comprised of McClain, Livingston, Logan and Woodford Counties.