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player ready...Lake County Circuit Judge John R. Goshgarian began serving a three-month suspension without pay Friday after recently admitting he badgered a juror and made crude comments about another judge.
All cases pending before Goshgarian will be assigned to other judges, including a high-profile lawsuit challenging the opening of a riverboat casino in northwest suburban Rosemont. That case was reassigned to Associate Judge Wallace B. Dunn.
Lawyers for casino-builder Emerald Casino Inc. and Rosemont responded promptly to the change Friday, filing motions that ask Dunn to transfer the case to Cook County.
Goshgarian had rejected a similar request from attorneys for the Illinois Gaming Board.
Neither Rosemont attorney William Quinlan nor Michael Ficaro, attorney for Emerald Casino, said he expected the change of judge to help his case, though each had plainly disagreed with Goshgarian on the venue issue. “I’m not a forecaster,” Ficaro said.
Michael Dockterman, attorney for casino-challengers Lake County Riverboat LP, said he would oppose having Dunn revisit the venue issue.
Henry C. Tonigan III, chief judge of the 19th Judicial Circuit, which serves Lake and McHenry Counties, said Goshgarian’s suspension took effect after his court was notified Thursday that the Illinois Courts Commission had approved the Judicial Inquiry Board’s recommended punishment.
On Thursday, the six-member commission upheld the punishment in a 5-1 vote.
Goshgarian, who has served on the bench since 1983, could not be reached Friday, but he has previously said he had no intention of resigning his $126,478-a-year post.
Goshgarian, only the 13th judge to be suspended since the Judicial Inquiry Board was formed in 1971, initially denied the misconduct charges that were filed against him in June 1998.
But last September, Goshgarian entered into a stipulated agreement with the board that contained the misconduct allegations that had been made by several attorneys who work in the courthouse in Waukegan.
In the 1997 incident involving the juror, the board complaint said that Goshgarian called the juror “stupid” and “gutless” for acquitting a Glenview man of attempted murder on charges he beat a Grayslake man with a pipe. The jury instead convicted the defendant of aggravated battery and armed violence.
The judicial board’s complaint also stated that Goshgarian used a vulgar term for women on at least five occasions from 1995 to 1997 and in referring to Judge Barbara Gilleran Johnson, who was not present at the time.