Good News for Defendants of Bedminster Municipal Court and the Public at Large.

It has come to our attention that effective March 11, 2014, Frank W. Gasiorowski has resigned his position as Bedminster municipal court judge.

This sack of garbage is no longer using his position on the bench to harass citizens with impunity, and his long career of dishonor and disgrace has finally and unceremoniously come to an end.

Years ago we watched this loser prop up another Bedminster loser, Nanci Arraial, in a municipal court case by testifying on Arraial's behalf from the bench, by ignoring Arraial's perjured testimony, and by disrespecting the defendant and attorney with an erroneous decision which was eventually overturned on appeal.

Both Arraial and Gasiorowski have cost the Bedminster taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend the municipality from ongoing litigation stemming from the aforementioned decision and successful appeal more than six years ago.  To this day, Bedminster and Nanci Arraial are defendants in said ongoing legal action.

Oh, and what did Bedminster do to reward Nanci Arraial for her incompetence and misconduct? Promoted her to sergeant, of course!  Don't be fooled, Nanci Arraial is a moron cop in an armpit little town in NJ.  She's only there to fill a diversity quota for a woman/lesbian(*). Anywhere else, she'd be eaten alive and spit out like the garbage that she is.

(*)The Barnardsville News reports on 6/2/2014 that "Arraial lives in Middlesex County with her spouse, Jamie Bunch." On information and belief, the correct spelling of Arraial's spouse is Jamie Bunce.

Do/Should NJ Judges Have Absolute Immunity?

First things first: Do New Jersey Judges have absolute immunity in the performance of their judicial duties? 

Regarding civil lawsuits, the answer appears to be yes.  Judicial immunity protects judges from liability for monetary damages in civil court for acts they perform pursuant to their judicial functions. 

In fact, the doctrine of judicial immunity applies even to allegations of malice or corruption (Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356-57 (1978) (citation omitted)).  This seems to imply that malice and corruption are interpreted as judicial functions.  If you ever had more than one experience in the New Jersey court system, you know this to be true.

But do judges have immunity from criminal prosecution?  The answer may just depend on who you ask.

Hunterdon County Superior Court Judge Stephen B. Rubin would like you to believe that New Jersey judges have absolute immunity for conduct they engage in from the bench, even criminal conduct.  Judge Rubin expressed this opinion in his finding of no probable cause in three citizen complaints I filed against Bedminster Municipal Court Judge Frank W. Gasiorowski under N.J.S. 2C:52-30 (Violation of Expungement Order), N.J.S. 2C:30-2b (Official Misconduct), and N.J.S. 2C:29-1 (Obstruction).  For the story behind these complaints, see my Case Study, complaint #2.

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office doesn't seem to share Judge Rubin's opinion.  On June 4, 2010, former Jersey City Municipal Court Chief Judge Wanda Molina entered a guilty plea for fixing parking tickets.  The OAG press release indicates that Judge Molina pled guilty to conduct described as judicial action.  It appears that engaging in criminal activity is not interpreted as a judicial function by the New Jersey Attorney General.

Regarding Judge Rubin’s ruling of absolute judicial immunity, the judicial immunity doctrine does not apply to Judge Gasiorowski’s actions because violating my Expungement Order, obstructing the filing of a Complaint with the Bedminster Municipal Court, and preventing me from ordering a transcript by ejecting my attorney and me from the building are non-judicial acts.  Said non-judicial acts violate the judicial oath of office and the Code of Judicial Conduct.  Therefore, they are not the actions that a judge is permitted to engage in, and so no judicial immunity can attach.

By the way, I have since discovered that a conflict of interest existed that was not disclosed by Judge Rubin: Judge Rubin and Judge Gasiorowski were colleagues for 4½ years while Judge Gasiorowski was a Superior Court Judge in the same Vicinage 13 as Judge Rubin.  Perhaps this is the reason for Judge Rubin's questionable opinion regarding judicial immunity in the Judge Gasiorowski complaints.

Should New Jersey Judges have absolute immunity in the performance of their judicial duties?

I say no, especially when there are allegations of malice, corruption, or criminal code violations, because judicial immunity eliminates the concept of accountability in the judiciary.  In short, judicial immunity sets the stage for judicial terrorists to run rampant.

What can you do when you are victimized by the unethical or unlawful conduct of a judge?  In my experience, there is a lot you can do, but it will amount to very little.  County prosecutors don't care; the New Jersey Attorney General's Office doesn't care; the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct (ACJC) will blow you off if you file a complaint about a judge; assignment judges don't care; municipal division managers don't care; the New Jersey Commission of Investigation doesn't care; even the administrative director of New Jersey Courts doesn't care.

The whole system is geared toward cover-up, conspiracy, and corruption.  The fix has to stop now.

Note: For more information, read Lawless America's Brief on Judicial Immunity.

Alleged Questionable Conduct by NJ Municipal Court Judge Frank W. Gasiorowski.

After an unpleasant experience in the Bedminster Municipal Court in August 2010, which led to my filing a citizen complaint against Judge Frank Gasiorowski under N.J.S. 2C:52-30 (see Case Study, complaint #2), I decided to conduct an investigation into the existence of other allegations of misconduct against Judge Gasiorowski.

I first found a blurb reported in the New Jersey Law Journal on January 18, 2007 which stated:

A Somerset County judge is leaving the bench, for unstated reasons, 18 months before the end of his seven-year term. Superior Court Judge Frank Gasiorowski, 62, who sits in the Criminal Part, will resign on Feb. 1 (2007).

It sounded unusual to me that a Superior Court Judge would resign from his job 18 months before attaining tenure, and then take a job in an inferior court as a municipal court judge.

I dug a little deeper and found a possible reason in a report in the Courier News on January 17, 2007 with the headline "Prosecutor attempting to boot judge" which read in part:

The judge (Gasiorowski) also questioned (ex-Bound Brook inspector) Gandy and gave the impression the woman was a prostitute, the motion states. Since Gandy's guilty verdict, the defense has filed motions for acquittal and to get a new trial, motions Gasiorowski repeatedly adjourned because the case was scheduled on his days off or on his vacation, the motion states.

Then I found a story about the same case reported in the Courier News on January 18, 2007 with the headline "Superior Court judge retiring" which read in part:

On Tuesday, the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office filed a motion to remove Gasiorowski from sentencing a former Bound Brook housing inspector convicted of official misconduct because, the motion states, Gasiorowski made pre-judgements about the case, interviewed a witness during the trial and put off motions to find a reason to overturn the verdict.

Apparently, the defense filed a motion for a new trial, and Superior Court Judge Robert B. Reed vacated the (Gasiorowski) verdict and ordered a new trial on July 17, 2007.  This story is currently posted on NJ.com.

I found additional evidence of questionable conduct by Gasiorowski before he resigned his Superior Court judgeship.  On July 25, 2007, the Home News Tribune published a story titled "Alleged bank robber can't enter PTI" which reads in part:

The appellate court ruled Gasiorowski, now a municipal judge in Watchung, strayed "from the standards established in pertinent case law" when he allowed Carvalho into the PTI program despite the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office refusal to give consent, which is required for the entry of a second-degree offender into the program.

It seems that the Prosecutor's office appealed to the Appellate division and got the ruling issued by Gasiorowski reversed.  The bank robber was finally sentenced in January, 2009.

Finally, I found a story published on the internet on May 31, 2007 titled "New Jersey Corruption (2)" in which Gasiorowski's conduct is alleged to be questionable within the context of several Motions filed by an individual back in 2005.

I still don't know for sure if there is a connection between these reports of Gasiorowski's questionable conduct and his abrupt resignation from the Superior Court in 2007, but there seems to be enough evidence to support a strong correlation.

Considering what Gasiorowski's been up to since then (see Case Study, complaint #2), I have little doubt that more stories of Gasiorowski's escapades will show up in the future.