Attorney Leanne Larson has worked for the Judiciary of the State of Connecticut for many years. She earns $150K a year monitoring the activities of attorneys in order to ensure that CT attorneys are following the rules of ethics. If she is watching the attorneys, who is watching her? Nobody. The Judiciary has no outside oversight. The only person who is monitoring Larson’s activities is the Judge who is assigned to her case. In the case where Larson allegedly tried to “shake down” a former US Attorney of the DC District, the Judge who was monitoring her activities was Judge Barbara Bellis, who was appointed by twice convicted Gov John Rowland. Bellis is the same Judge who filed grievances against attorneys Norm Pattis and John Mills, attorneys with near spotless reputations, whose long and protracted disciplinary prosecutions, brought upon in part by Bellis, were mostly overturned on appeal. Bellis disbarred attorney Josephine Miller, yet Judge Underhill refused to recognize said disbarment in the Federal District Court. Did Barbara Bellis bring any disciplinary action against Leanne Larson? None that I could find. Bellis has effectively been reversed almost as many times as Judge Angelica Papastavros, who sued her own daughter for custody of her granddaughter, which was thrown out of court. The Legislature and Governor should exercise their power to impeach Judge Barbara Bellis. Leanne Larson should be terminated from her $150K position.

This is what the former US Attorney, who worked for years in the District of Columbia prosecuting white collar criminals, and who worked in private practice representing Fortune 500 companies, alleged against Larson: “Larson admitted that the charges against the Plaintiff could not be proven by clear and convincing evidence, yet Larson asked the Plaintiff to settle, by taking a CLE course, in exchange for the Plaintiff admitting that there was clear and convincing evidence on one of the charges. Larson wanted Plaintiff to lie under oath and admit to nonexistent evidence in an affidavit. Larson asked Plaintiff to agree to a statement that she knew was untrue, simply to avoid a hearing in which Larson conceded she could not win. Plaintiff stated that she could not lie under oath and sign a perjurious affidavit. In retaliation for Plaintiff refusing to sign the proposed perjurious affidavit, Larson filed new baseless charges. This was improper. The Plaintiff is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in whom it was instilled that (1) it is highly improper to sign a perjurious affidavit, and (2) even worse for a prosecutor to ask a defendant to sign an affidavit that neither the prosecution nor the defendant believed to be truthful or accurate.”

In a separate action brought against the former Fed, the following was alleged against Larson: “Attorney Larson’s submission to the Court is a violation of the Statewide Bar Counsel’s policies. In the attached two emails from Head Bar Counsel Christopher Slack, CC’d to Larson, he indicated that the Statewide Bar Counsel would not provide the submission to any Connecticut state judges and would not publish it on the judicial website. Yet that is exactly what Attorney Larson did: she published the decision on the Court’s website and she provided the decision to this Court in an effort to prejudice the Court and to get the Court to consider it. Such rogue conduct should not be countenanced.”

Larson’s crusade against the former DOJ prosecutor was shut down by Judge Thomas Lynch after years of costly litigation. Lynch threw out the entire case, after the CT Judiciary and the former Fed spent tons of resources litigating a case that could have been resolved with a settlement in ten minutes with the former Fed taking a CLE class. But that would have been too easy. Larson wouldn’t have much work to do. Her job would be eliminated. Why did Judge Lynch cancel the execution of the former Fed and grant her a full pardon? Is he one of those few members of the legal profession who actually has a human soul? Or a brain? He will probably get demoted to traffic court for his refusal to follow orders. Larson never filed an appeal to challenge the dismissal of her case. I wonder why?

The judicial authorities waste a lot of time and resources pursuing minor cases. The extreme cases of stealing a client’s money, or physically attacking a client, are almost never challenged as the attorney has no defense. I knew an attorney who got disciplined for trapping an opposing attorney in the revolving doors of the courthouse while he yelled at her through the glass. So the disciplinary authorities are left pursuing “crimes” of stupidity, or negligence: Attorney John Mills was subjected to years of protracted hearings because he criticized judicial decisions in court pleadings; Attorney Norm Pattis, who accidentally emailed medical records to another attorney, was subjected to long and protracted hearings that ended up at the Appellate Court; attorney Enrico Vaccaro who case is too confusing and convoluted to figure out what he did or didn’t do that got him a two day suspension that was challenged all the way up to the CT Supreme Court; 70 year old attorney Richard Silverstein, who bounced a $250 trustee check, is lost in the judicial purple haze of countless delays; attorney Josephine Miller has been subjected to years of disciplinary hearings because she sued the Judiciary and violated the unwritten “rule” against “slandering” the Judiciary; and of course there is Attorney Noodles who violated the unwritten “rule” against blogging about members of the Judiciary, who apparently deem themselves immune from criticism yet regularly protect the rights of the public to excoriate politicians.

The CT Judiciary’s annual budget is approved by the State legislature, and is currently running at about $667M a year. States with about the same population as Connecticut spend far less on their Judicial Branch. Nevada spends $80M a year, Utah spends $252M a year; Iowa spends $220M a year, Oklahoma spends $287M a year. After the real estate crash of 2008 the CT Legislature started to close down courthouses. The Judiciary quickly set up a public-relations campaign to “monitor inquiries from the news media and stories about the Branch, market positive stories about the judiciary and the Branch to news organizations” and “contact editorial boards when necessary to present the Branch’s position on an issue.” Strategic Plan page 63 Judicial website. The Judiciary issued the following statement: “while the Judicial Branch’s budget represents only 2.52 percent of the state budget, we were asked to absorb cuts of nearly three times that amount while still providing the same level of services to the public.” Public Service and Trust Commission Strategic Plan – Five Year Update, page 1, Judicial website.

New York and Massachusetts spend about the same amount of money, per capita, as CT on their Judiciaries, yet these States are international centers for the high-tech and financial industries. CT is a strip mall suburban sprawl with casinos located on Indian reservations with their own tribal courts. CT has no skyscrapers. No industrial base. No international ports or harbors. The only national attraction is Pepe’s Pizza. The biggest industries are casinos, non-profit hospitals, real estate agencies, fast food chains, and personal injury law firms. CT shouldn’t be spending almost ten times more on its judicial budget than the State of Nevada.

In Ncvada and Oklahoma a trial court judge earns around $150K a year, while in CT a trial court judge starts at $230K a year, while clerks and judicial underlings in CT like Larson earn at least $160K a year. Judges in States where the cost of living is the highest, such as New York, California and Massachusetts, earn about the same as a Judge in CT. Talk about a white collar welfare state. Most judges in this country are political animals, they either get appointed through their political connections to the governor or they get elected with the backing of the political party in charge. In England and other European countries Judges are selected by independent panels of legal scholars. A few political hacks may get through the cracks in England, but in Connecticut the political hack crack is wider than the Atlantic Ocean.

The Noodles think tank, located in the Otisville research center, after much study by experts in the field, has proposed the following: DEFUND THE CT JUDICIARY!

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