WARREN COUNTY---If one does a Google search for Warren County Supreme Court Judge David B. Krogmann, three of the first 10 listings associate Krogmann with North Country Gazette publisher June Maxam.

The Google search also informs us that Krogmann is the president of the Warren County Bar Foundation of which Cathi Radner of Miller, Mannix, Schachner and Hafner is secretary. How cozy. Radner and Miller. Mannix are currently involved in the federal 1983 claim Maxam has against the county which involves the actions of Krogmann and the county against her.

Krogmann will likely be called as a witness in the pending federal case in regard to missing bail money, jurisdictional issues and his violation of the publisher's constitutional rights in his failed attempt to jail her in December 2003.

Radner was also the attorney who represented Warren County Clerk Caryl Clark, the Town of Chester, Town of Queensbury and others in the 2003-04 Oaths Project litigation of which Krogmann was a party, litigation in which the publisher as coordinator of the NYS Oaths Project was the plaintiff.

Krogmann was the former law partner of William Bacas, former attorney for the Town of Lake Luzerne, defense attorney for former Warren County Board of Supervisors chairman and Luzerne supervisor Victor Grant. Grant was removed from office for official misconduct, avoiding weightier convictions, for selling insurance to the town and helping himself to the commission monies too.

Krogmann came under fire in 1996 after Luzerne taxpayers petitioned the court for the removal of Grant from office. Although being paid by the taxpayers as town attorney to represent the town, Krogmann acted in a dual role, representing both the town as well as the person the taxpayers were trying to remove from office and forcing the taxpayers to pay him to represent Grant against themselves. Krogmann unethically served as the personal attorney for Grant both in criminal proceedings as well as removal proceedings and refused to voluntarily remove himself in that matter too until the taxpayers forced the issue in court.

Only after he was challenged for allegedly having a prohibited conflict of interest, did Krogmann step down as Grant's attorney, being replaced by Gary Hobbs, then associated with Bartlett, Pontiff, Stewart and Rhodes of Glens Falls, whose services were paid by the town of Lake Luzerne rather than from the pocket of Grant.

Ultimately Grant was removed from office and convicted on a misdemeanor conflict of interest charge for his sales of insurance to the town while he was supervisor.

He was the former Glens Falls City Court judge who tried jail the publisher in December 2003 for convictions which were reversed and dismissed for violations of the publisher's constitutional rights, maliciously prosecuted for over seven years by none other than Gary Hobbs. Krogmann will likely be called as a witness in the publisher's federal claim against the county, Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland, several judges, multiple officers of the Warren County Sheriff's Department and special prosecutor Hobbs who took Krogmann's place as a city court judge.

Krogmann is the one who announced that the publisher's $5,000 bail money was missing, who was among those sued by the publisher as part of the NYS Oaths Project because he had failed to file his oath of office as Glens Falls City Court judge, in violation of both the Glens Falls City Charter and state Public Officers Law.

Not only has Krogmann been the defendant in an Article 78 action brought by the publisher against him in the Oaths Project, but Krogmann has represented a party in an action against the publisher which was resolved in the publisher's favor.

Krogmann has also been the subject of a complaint brought by the publisher before the state Attorney General's office who ruled that Krogmann had acted improperly in the matter of what became known as the Lake Luzerne land swap involving land in the Town of Chester. Although an assistant attorney general said that Krogmann had allegedly acted unethically and improperly, the state couldn't bring action against him because the statute of limitations had expired by the time the state investigation was completed.

Now Krogmann is the Warren County Supreme Court judge in a civil matter in which Maxam is suing Ginger Berlin of Albany, her former business partner in The Empire Journal, for defamation and libel for a diatribe published by Berlin in February 2006 online, falsely accusing Maxam of sending her a harassing email among other false representations including that she had trademarked The Empire Journal and that Maxam had violated copyright law by publishing her own original work. Berlin was and continues to maintain that she owns the intellectual property of Maxam although she never paid her for it nor contracted for it.

During negotiations, Berlin has now essentially made an admission to the defamation and libel, stating that she would publish an apology for making the false statement but has refused to make any monetary settlement or pay the costs of the action necessitated by her. Krogmann has disqualified himself in the past in matters pertaining to Maxam but adamantly refuses to do this time around after Berlin's actions, constituting judge shopping, removed Saratoga County Supreme Court Judge Thomas Nolan from the case after nearly a year, allowing Warren County court clerk Joseph Hughes, who has a long adversarial relationship with Maxam, to hand pick Krogmann for the case.

In a previous letter to the publisher about his assignment to the case, Krogmann inserted Maxam's criminal matter into the case, a matter which was ordered sealed by the court after the charges were dismissed in December 2005. The purpose of the sealing provision in CPL §160.50 is to insure that a person who is charged but not convicted suffers no stigma of having once been the subject of an unsustained accusation. Once the sealing order is in place, the matter becomes confidential and sealed, an order violated by Krogmann.

Krogmann has made sure that the malicious prosecution of Maxam has become part of the civil case in what is not only an ethical violation but a violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct in that Krogmann has boldly exhibited his bias and a lack of impartiality towards the publisher and established a blatant appearance of impropriety.

Krogmann took his bias and unethical conduct a step higher late this week in a letter to the publisher announcing his prejudgment of a motion before it's even filed and a decision in a matter without hearing, indicating that only one side was heard-Berlin's---which seems to constitute an improper ex parte communication and denial of due process. Krogmann warned the publisher not to submit a formal motion for his recusal from the case because he would deny it and said that the plaintiff's motion to compel Berlin to provide various business documents including bank statements, canceled checks and other accounting for the business was being denied without hearing because Berlin's counsel had told him she had complied with the discovery demands. She hasn't and the wording of his letter seems to suggest that he and Watt have been engaging in private communications.

Complaints are being filed with both the judicial commission, disciplinary agency for judges, and the Committee on Professional Standards, disciplinary agency for attorneys.

Berlin shut Maxam out of The Empire Journal back in September 2005 but refused to buy out Maxam's half of the business or take any steps to resolve the matter or relieve her of liability for Berlin's actions in regard to the business, including operating under a fraudulent business entity. After Berlin adamantly refused to discuss or settle the matter, Maxam initiated suit against her in state Supreme Court last February. When Berlin refused to produce documents and other materials relevant to the business, after numerous attempts to resolve the matter amicably, Maxam served a motion to compel on Berlin this past January.

Although Berlin had represented since September 2005 that she was represented by an attorney, she refused to provide the name of her counsel to Maxam. As the motion hearing date in March approached, Berlin began pandering to the court for additional time in order to hire an attorney----albeit she been falsely stating for 18 months she was being represented by counsel. She received one adjournment but still produced no attorney. She then requested yet another adjournment for the purposes of obtaining an attorney, excessive delay opposed by Maxam. On the day the hearing was scheduled, she magically drew Saratoga Springs Christopher Watt out of a hat who immediately moved for the recusal of Judge Nolan.

The reason? Because Watt's law partner, Lawrence Hamilton was conveniently the personal attorney for Judge Nolan, setting up a situation for judge shopping and without surprise, Krogmann who has enormous conflicts of interest involving the plaintiff, was named to hear the case, warning the plaintiff in writing not to bring a formal recusal motion for his removal because he will deny it. How convenient. Of all the attorneys in New York State, Berlin at the last moment engaged the partner of the judge's attorney. Rather than declining to represent Berlin because of the conflict, Berlin and Watt set about to shop for a judge with Berlin being fully aware of the existing and long established conflicts of interest between the publisher and Krogmann.

In December 2003, when he was trying to incarcerate the publisher, although Krogmann was already the subject of litigation brought by the publisher, challenging his title to judicial office for having failed to timely file his oath of office within 30 days of the commencement of his term, removing him from judicial office as a matter of law, Krogmann refused to recuse himself from Maxam's case in Glens Falls City Court. Although he issued an order for Maxam to appear before him on Dec. 31, 2003 for incarceration on convictions which were later reversed and dismissed, Krogmann did not send the notice of appearance to Maxam but rather he sent it to her assigned counsel for the pending appeal, Theresa Suozzi, but informed Suozzi that she couldn't represent Maxam on Dec. 31 because she hadn't been assigned to do so.

In essence, Krogmann denied Maxam her Sixth Amendment right to counsel by refusing to appoint an attorney to represent her. Krogmann never gave direct notice to Maxam that she was required to appear for incarceration on Dec. 31 even though he denied her counsel and was essentially forced to proceed pro se, but she second-handedly received notice.

She asked for Krogmann's recusal in 2003, he refused despite Maxam having sued him in state Supreme Court in regard to the oaths issue. State Supreme Court Judge Joseph Sise of Montgomery County had been assigned to the oaths cases since July 2003 but as soon as Krogmann became Waren County Supreme Court judge on Jan. 1, 2004, Sise was removed from the proceedings and Krogmann was assigned-----to hear his own case.

He had already publicly commented on the oaths project litigation in violation of judicial ethics, granting an interview to The Post-Star about Maxam and the Oaths Project and stating in court in December, 2003 that he had just recently attended a statewide judicial conference at which Maxam and the Oaths Project "was the topic of conversation".

"Everyone there was talking about the oaths cases", Krogmann said.

Such public comment by a judge about a case pending in another court is prohibited by the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct and rules of the chief administrative judge of the state. Krogmann seems to have a problem with ethics.

Unknown to the publisher because Krogmann had never made public disclosure as he should have done, in December, 2003, as Krogmann was poised to wrongfully incarcerate the publisher, Dennis Siemens, Esq., an attorney with the Citizens for Legal Responsibility, an not-for-profit tax exempt educational organization educating members on their legal, constitutional and civil rights, wrote Krogmann on behalf of the publisher.

In his letter to Krogmann, Siemens told Krogmann he had violated the publisher's rights. "Should a judge engage in any act that gives the appearance of partiality, the judge has engaged in a violation of the First Amendment, an act which deprives the judge of jurisdiction, for he no longer is acting as a judicial officer but is acting only "in his person". http://www.clr.org/Krogmann-David-Judge.pdf

Krogmann has placed himself in the same situation in the civil matter against Berlin.

Krogmann never disclosed Siemens' letter to the publisher or her attorney but before he could incarcerate her, albeit illegally, a stay was issued by Fulton County Court Judge Richard Giardino. Krogmann is also the judge who was involved in the disappearance of $5,000 of Maxam's bail money.

David B. Krogmann, a matter for the state Commission on Judicial Conduct--candidate for recusal, oblivious to ethics. 4-21-07

© 2007 North Country Gazette