Family judge recuses herself from Max Grossman case
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- A family court judge has removed herself from a child custody case involving well-known government watchdog and University of Texas at El Paso associate professor Max Grossman, according to court records obtained by ABC-7.
The records show 383rd District Court Judge Lyda Ness Garcia filed paperwork Monday morning voluntarily recusing herself from the civil case involving Grossman.
Grossman, 57, was arrested September 5 on a family violence charge in connection to an August 27 incident involving his former girlfriend, court records show. Grossman also filed a civil lawsuit on the day of his arrest to seek custody of his two-year-old child shared with her.
Ness Garcia has declined to explain why she’s removed herself from the case, saying in an email to ABC-7, in part, she’s “not permitted to discuss any pending case or reasonings under the judicial canon of ethics.”
The recusal came one day after Ness Garcia took to her Facebook page to applaud an opinion piece written by former City of El Paso executive Nicole Alderete-Ferrini.
The column, published by El Paso Matters, was titled “El Paso cannot keep excusing abuse of women in public life” and focused directly on the criminal case involving Grossman.
“For years, this man built influence by attacking women who dared to lead, to speak, to take up public space,” Nicole Alderete-Ferrini wrote. “I’ve lived through his assaults. Not physical ones, but the kind that grind you down in the public square: smear campaigns, harassment, the calculated effort to discredit and humiliate. It is violence all the same.”
“It’s time to call out the dangerous misogyny in our town,” Judge Ness Garcia wrote on her personal Facebook page Sunday while sharing the editorial. “Kudos to Nicole’s bravery for speaking up for all women in public service barraged by the vitriol and lies of small men. While I have no opinion on the specifics of these allegations, trusting in the judicial system, the underlying sentiment about keyboard bullies and the violence they perpetuates through words into a cultural sensibility, ring true.”
ABC-7 is not publishing the name of the accuser – we are following our corporate policy of not naming alleged victims of domestic violence.
According to Grossman’s family law attorney, Joy Degenhart, the civil case reached Judge Ness Garcia’s court by the afternoon of Friday, September 5.
In a phone call with ABC-7, Degenhart said her office learned over the weekend about the remarks and op-ed shared by the judge.
Degenhart said she reached out to the court on Monday morning to find out whether Judge Ness Garcia would transfer the case or if she needed to file a motion for recusal. She said she was informed the court had already started the transfer process, and the case was referred to the Sixth Administrative Region, which she said will assign it to a new family court judge.
Degenhart said she did not know why the judge transferred the case. She said she’s practiced in her court many times, and described Ness Garcia as being a fair judge.
Grossman's request for a protective order against his former girlfriend, alleging stalking and harassment, is still pending in Judge Ness Garcia’s court, according to Degenhart. However, she expects the case to be transferred once it’s assigned to a new court.
ABC-7 reached out to Judge Ness Garcia Monday to ask about her reaction to Ferrini’s op-ed and the status of the case.
“As noted in my personal comments on social media I have no position or personal knowledge regarding the allegations against Mr. Grossman either criminally or in the family law arena,” she explained to ABC-7. “To my knowledge he has no opinion about me. My commentary at no time addressed him by name or personally.” (To read her entire statement to ABC-7, shared at her request, go to the bottom of the article).
Attorney Randy Erben, who is adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law and commissioner of the Texas Ethics Commission, spoke to ABC-7 generally about how judges must carefully balance their personal opinions.
Erben said although judges can’t discuss pending cases, they don’t give up all their liberties.
“Judges don’t lose their First Amendment rights when they become a judge,” Erben said. “So, they can comment on a lot of different things. I mean, it would probably be unwise for them to comment on a case that could end up before them. Let’s say they were an appellate judge and commenting on a case before a district court that might be appealed to them, but in general they can express themselves, but what the code of the judicial conduct basically says you’re supposed to uphold the integrity of the judiciary and avoid impropriety.”
Grossman, who calls himself “Chief Instigator,” runs a website called El Paso Taxpayer Revolt. The site says, "We oppose confiscatory taxation, deficit spending, corporate welfare, and political corruption at all levels of government.”
He’s taken aim at several high-ranking current and past local officials, including Nicole Alderete-Ferrini, who was the City of El Paso’s Chief Sustainability Officer and a candidate for city manager.
Grossman, and several other media outlets including ABC-7, published reports about her professional credentials being called into question after videos Grossman shared showed she described herself as an architect multiple times in public settings.
"To call oneself an accredited and licensed architect, one must earn an advanced degree in architecture, attain years of professional experience working under a licensed architect, and then pass a series of challenging examinations. Our research shows she repeatedly represented herself as an architect despite lacking the requisite credentials," Grossman wrote on his website in September 2024.
At the time of the reports, Alderete-Ferrini told ABC-7 she has never been a licensed architect and has never misrepresented herself.
She ultimately resigned from her leadership position. City officials declined to say why, calling it a ‘personnel matter.’
"I have never feared accountability. Public service demands it. But his attacks were never about accountability, they were about obliteration. Not critique, but character assassination. Not debate, but destruction, " Nicole Alderete-Ferrini stated in her op-ed.
ABC-7 reached out to Max Grossman’s attorney about the editorial.
Grossman's Criminal Defense Attorney Brian Kennedy declined to provide a statement by saying, “no comment.”
To read the entire statement from 383rd District Court Judge Lyda Ness Garcia, click and read through the document below. The statement is posted at Ness Garcia's request.
