Judge Chastises Lawyer Behavior On Opening Day Of Judge Arditti’s Nepotism Trial

The opening arguments in the trial of Judge Regina Arditti Tuesday morning were anything but calm.

Prosecutor Joe Monsivais objected more than 100 times to statements made by Arditti’s attorney, Stuart Leeds, during his hour-long argument, saying the comments were argumentative and irrelevant.

The defense claims the state is pursuing the case against Arditti because District Attorney Jaime Esparza was upset when she won the race for the bench in the 448th District Court over Jim Callan, an assistant DA, and is using his authority as the district attorney to exact revenge.

Arditti is charged with bribery and nepotism, accused of accepting money from another judge, Manny Barazza, to hire his relative in exchange for a job for her son in that judge’s office back in 2009.

After the judge dismissed the jury for a short break, the state asked for the judge to dismiss both Leeds and assistant defense attorney Theresa Caballero from the court due to the state’s inability to have a fair trial.

“The DA’s office can’t be used in this way,” said Monsivais. “This is quickly becoming chaos and we cannot get a fair trial.”

Judge Smith, a visiting judge, later replied, “I have never seen conduct by lawyers in a courtroom this way.”

Caballero said they will continue to ‘zealously’ defend their client at their own detriment.

The judge decided to deny the motion to remove Leeds and Caballero at this point, but will carry the motion along, in the event the conduct of the defense attorneys becomes a distraction to the state’s ability to have a fair trial.

Prosecutors spent the afternoon going over Arditti’s grand jury testimony. Arditti repeatedly denied making any agreement with Barazza. She said Sally Mena wasn’t her first choice, but she was ultimately hired from the remaining candidates because she was bilingual. Arditti also testified that she never wanted her son to work in a drug court.

“I didn’t want him to apply. No mother would want her son to work in a drug court,” Arditti said in her grand jury testimony. “Being what’s going on in Juarez, I didn’t want him to do it.”

In her grand jury testimony, Arditti also asked, “You think I would’ve spent all that time interviewing so many people if I knew I was going to hire (Sally Mena)?”

Arditti said she hired the right person.

“I didn’t do anything wrong by hiring someone who is qualified,” Arditti said in her grand jury testimony. “That’s not a crime. What is a crime is an agreement. And I absolutely did not do that.”