Judging Ana

Later that day, well-known defense attorney Fred Haddad, a longtime friend of Cotrone's, contacted New Times in an attempt to dissuade the newspaper from publishing the story. He claimed he was calling of his own volition. "She's one of the good ones," he said of Gardiner. "This is going to cause [Judicial Qualifying Commission] investigations, and nobody needs that."

He didn't deny that his friend was involved in a romance with the judge. Instead, he argued that judges and prosecutors and defense attorneys have been drinking together and having sex with one another for years in Broward County.

"What's the big deal so long as it doesn't affect their decisions?" he asked.

An answer to Haddad's rhetorical question comes in judicial rules, which dictate that judges strictly avoid so much as an appearance that their decisions on the bench might be influenced by personal matters. Judges around the country have resigned, faced investigation, and been publicly reprimanded for as much.

For example, after it was discovered recently that Lee County Judge James R. Adams was romancing a defense attorney who had appeared before him, the state's Supreme Court found that he'd demeaned his office.

"A judge who enters into a romantic relationship with a lawyer who practices before the judge, and then continues to preside over matters in which the lawyer appears as counsel transgresses the Code of Judicial Conduct in both letter and spirit," the court wrote in 2006.

The allegations regarding Cotrone go a step further, however, since taxpayers' money is involved. Gardiner appointed him to many cases prior to 2004, when the state legislature ended the often corrupt practice of judges personally appointing attorneys to represent indigent defendants.

Gardiner has also refused to answer the allegations involving Cotrone, Scheinberg, and Patanzo. But she clearly understands their gravity. After a reporter questioned her about those relationships in her courtroom on April 11, Gardiner hired Bogenschutz to represent her.

Bogenschutz, who defended Gardiner's old friend Ken Jenne in his federal criminal case and dozens of other public officials entangled in the criminal justice system, wrote a letter the same day to New Times, demanding that the newspaper stop asking questions that had caused Gardiner to "retain counsel, expend funds, and to be personally insulted and embarrassed."

The Bogenschutz letter, which was signed by his partner Michael Dutko, also demanded that the newspaper "cease and desist" from contacting the judge.

And Judge Gardiner has remained publicly silent on the issue.