Quippy Judge Obsessed With Pornographic Turtle Shirts

Via Daily News

In the spring, real inroads were made for quipping Judges everywhere, when one Harry Stone-wannabe poked giant holes in a suspects defense with the sheer force of his jokes. But now a newly-banned upstate Judge may have set back quipping Judges centuries, thanks to an embarassing series of encounters with one young woman with a turtle-emblazoned shirt.

Saratoga County Family Court Judge Gilbert Abramson is accused of denying at least six people hearings or lawyers, "forgetting" to read them their rights, and sending them to jail for 21 to 268 days. Abramson resigned in late October after he lost a Republican primary, and when disciplinary charges were first being explored; he was banned from the bench yesterday. But while Abramson's lawyer defended his due process gaffes as "mistakes," and not violations of constitutional rights, he had a harder time explaining Abramson's 2008 Family Court encounter with a female defendant who had a turtle on her t-shirt that Abramson thought looked more like a penis with a face.

"It's very phallic, and it's a penis with a smile on it...That's a turtle on Viagra. It's erect, it's smiling. And you never see a sad Mrs. Turtle, because they're fully satisfied," Abramson told the woman, in court for using her child as a lookout while shoplifting, from the bench. The shirt depicted an illustrated turtle with the caption, "Cranky but adorable so I'm worth it." "You can't look at your shirt without feeling aroused," he told her. He just couldn't control the jokes! Abramson was brought before a conduct board for the remarks, and said he vowed to be more careful next time he saw the defendant.

The woman returned to his court a few months later, wearing the same turtle t-shirt. And Abramson was struck with amnesia: "Another great shirt. All of (her) shirts are phallic. Look at the turtle. It's a pornographic turtle," he said. He later defended his second outburst as a way to lighten the mood in the court, and added that the defendant "was welcoming of the attention, and I thought that was appropriate."

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By Ben Yakas in News on November 6, 2010 12:20 PM

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erlik-hyborian

Here's a little multimedia file with audio of the notorious "Honorable Judge" Gilbert Abramson speaking at a Relationship Violence seminar at Skidmore College in Saratoga, NY. In it, he responds to a question from a legal advocate about how he maintains his demeanor in his courtroom, when dealing with the perpetrators (dads) in his courtroom. "Grapefruit sized medications", and by his response and voice, you'd bet that he just had a couple.

Additionally, in the same file file he tell a litigant to "Stop talking to me, or go to jail! You got me? You'll be in contempt!". This was way back in 2004.

The now famous penis-turtle-t-shirt is also shown.

Do ANY of you believe that his courtroom decisions should stand??!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IOD92l93Ho

Spirit of 76

I thought Dom DeLuise was dead.

dadoc

The eyes are definitely more Jonathan Winters. I always got the two of them mixed up.

youngpro

interestingly enough, the county to the west (montgomery, my 'home county') had its family court judge removed just a few years ago for calling a litigant 'nuts' and also depriving him of his due process.

must be in the judge water u there...

erlik-hyborian

Thank You.. to the Commission on Judicial Conduct for firing a "judge", that had already quit the job. Does he still get some sort of pension, or continuing medical benefits? He can't be a judge again, but can he still be a lawyer? If he were a "normal" person, he'd be in jail. There's no question about it, especially if he were standing in his own court, and just wanted to present part of his case. "Shut up, SIT down, or I'll have you arrested!" I probably shouldn't put quotes around that sentence because that might not have been the exact wording, but you have all of the tapes, you can look them up. Unless of course, it happens to be in those "missing" 45 minutes of audio. A lot went on during those missing minutes, but that's a whole 'nother story.

You started this investigation two years ago...WHY???...Why the hell didn't you guys investigate this "judge" years ago, when credible complaints were coming in from all over the place? Do you STILL want to tell us that our complaints have no merit, and that we have no credibility??? Or even, that his actions were any less egregious towards us? Did you just think we were just making it all up, even though we would provide you with transcripts, AND audio tapes of his own pompous voice?

We came to you for help!?! We told you that it was a PATTERN of behavior way back then. There is nobody else that we can go to but you guys. These judges are accountable to no one but YOU! Not only did you ignore us, and the piles of evidence that we would provide, your only response is in a three sentence form letter, with no explanation why you failed to act, and none coming. It's all SECRET.

Now, as you know, we put a lot of effort into these complaints, and we have to buy a lot of transcripts.

Note to people who don't know: Yes, in order for us to get transcripts we have to pay for them, usually several hundred, or thousands of dollars in my case. These transcripts are our ONLY proof of our claims, they are gospel. They are the only means we have to prove what we contend…and, we have to BUY them.

Generally, these complaints are written to you without the aid of an attorney, and they lack the sophistication and word dodging that you're probably used to. So, I apologize for that. But, I just spent all my lawyer money, not to mention all my food money for the next month on the stupid transcript.

The transcript IS the court's gospel (probably why they cost so much). If something shows up in the transcript that indicates that a judge is doing "this or that", then he probably did it. If there just happens to be a law or a canon that states that it is illegal for the judge to do "this or that", or that our civil and constitutional rights say very clearly that he can't do "this or that" to us, and he DOES it, and it's IN THE TRANSCRIPT, then he DID it!

It's not rocket science. Do something about it!!!

If a judge states on the record: "That makes me HATE you!", then you can be pretty sure that's exactly what he said. Maybe that in itself is not a violation of the law, or maybe not even a violation of one of those judicial canons, but it sure makes you think that the tradition of having the right to stand in front of an impartial judge is a bit of a fairy tale.

Judicial Commission: You cannot just make it all just go away now! All the previous complaints now need to be reviewed. Mine starts in 2003, And, I'll bet that this behavior goes all the way back to the beginning of his tenure. Most, if not ALL of these, HAVE merit, and you need to address them all on the public's behalf. I know some people, and I am clearly one of them, that have sent you CLEAR and INDISPUTABLE proof of civil rights violations, blatant disregard from not just the letter of the law, but the entire CONCEPT of the word, and all I got back was a three sentence form letter. You can't seem to tell us on the phone, either.

That's no longer good enough. You need to follow through on this, or be very embarrassed for not doing so. I'd also like to suggest that if no action is taken, then you are complicit in this and you should should be investigated from a Federal level. You KNEW about all of this stuff years ago, and yet you allowed hundreds, if not thousands of people to be damaged for the rest of their lives for just having the misfortune to have had to stand in front of….

The "Honorable Judge Gilbert Abramson" !!! - Great Job - !!!!

What happens for all of these people who have been robbed of seeing their children grow up, have been destroyed financially , mentally, and physically, lost their jobs, their homes, or were put in jail by him? How many parents were forced into paying about a hundred dollars an hour to a company called Supervised Visitation Services, inc. just so she could supervise you visiting your own children. And, might I add, the owner and proprietor was UNLICENSED in New York to do so!

But they had no choice. If the proprietor said the visit wasn't great, she would just recommend more visits, and there was this vicious cycle of self-dealing that cost people thousands!!

"Do the thing with Susan, or don't see the kids. I don't care."

Again, no license. Didn't this just happen up there in saratoga county, with another approved forensic analyst that wasn't really approved either?

All this done to people to some good people…just for no reason… just because he could, or maybe just because he didn't have one of those "grapefruit sized medications" that he bragged about having to take so he could deal with the perpetrators (Dads) in his courtroom. OR….. maybe he just DID! "

Grapefruit sized medications" ???!!! Come on!!! He said this at a talk, in public, at Skidmore College.

Judicial Commission: You need to follow through on this investigation, and find a way to hold this person accountable. You are the only oversight to these judges, and you dropped the ball here. It's not the only one. But, if there's a bad judge (10 year term @ ~$120,000/yr) and it takes 7 or 8 years for the commission to catch up to this level of illegal behavior, and you can only get around to firing him several weeks after he quits, you're going to have an ongoing problem with judges that just enjoy making someone dance and plead in front of him, just for the generous offer of having being able to pay a hundred bucks to an unqualified, unlicensed social worker that will observe him playing with his kids, so he can do it all again…next week.