Twenty women accuse CA appellate justice of inapporpriate remarks, touching; he calls it a “whisper campaign”

What to call a Commission on Judicial Performance trial seeking to defrock a setting justice? "Witch-hunt seems, well, counterproductive. So “whisper campaign” it is.

A lawyer for a Los Angeles-based state appeals court justice told a panel of judges Monday that sexual harassment charges against him stemmed from a “whisper campaign” in court hallways fueled in part by a female judge who enjoyed being at the center of attention.

During the first day of formal proceedings against 2nd District Court of Appeal Justice Jeffrey H. Johnson, his lawyer suggested Johnson was the victim of malicious gossip and that some of his accusers, including Justice Victoria Chaney, were not credible.

Chaney, who serves on the 2nd District Court with Johnson, has accused him of sexually harassing her for years, grabbing one of her breasts, patting her bottom and repeatedly asking her to have an affair with him. She and Johnson were appointed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Unfortunately for Justice Johnson, there are no shortage of character witnesses - and not the good kind.

The state’s first witness, Roberta Burnette, a private lawyer, testified that she met Johnson at the Jonathan Club in 2015 at a dinner sponsored by the Assn. of Business Trial Lawyers.

While they were seated alone at a table toward the end of the night, “he said to me, you know you are very voluptuous,” she testified. She tried to brush off the remark and changed the subject.

As their conversation continued, he eventually asked her to perform one sexual act on him, then another, she testified.

I like an appellate judge who gets right to the point, don't you?

Read more sexy details, here.