Jesse Scheckner
More bad news for the Broward County bench.
The Florida Supreme Court has scheduled a public reprimand of another county Judge in early June, following a judicial misconduct investigation.
She joins two other Broward Judges facing scrutiny for behavior unbecoming of their offices.
On Monday, the court notified Broward Judge Mardi Levey Cohen that it will reprimand her on June 3 for spreading dubious information during the 2022 election cycle.
She’ll also be suspended for 10 days without pay.
The disciplinary action stems from an unauthenticated email Levey Cohen forwarded to a representative of the Wynmoor Condominium Democratic Club and a correspondence Levey Cohen had with a church where her opponent campaigned.
The email, sent July 15, 2022, was from a person claiming to be a relative of Levey Cohen’s opponent, Kaysia Earley, alleging that Earley committed a crime by obtaining money from the Paycheck Protection Program.
It also claimed, without evidence, that Earley falsely accused her supervisor at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office of racism and harassment in hopes of receiving a settlement and said Earley submitted false information on applications for food stamps.
The Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) Investigation Panel, which filed charges last July, noted that the sender of the email — who claimed to be Earley’s sister — encouraged Levey Cohen to hire a private investigator to confirm and look into the allegations.
“This was not done,” JQC Vice Chair Michelle Morley wrote.
In a second incident, Levey Cohen sent a church where Early campaigned a copy of an IRS complaint she filed challenging the church’s tax-exempt status. Levey Cohen then sent a copy of the complaint to the church with a false return address to suggest that it came directly from the IRS, not her.
She later admitted her actions “fell below the high standard required by the Code of Judicial Conduct,” Morley wrote. But she also pointed out that some of the information in the email was corroborated and appeared true.
Levey Cohen also denied any ill intention in contacting the church, claiming that she only meant to put the church on notice about how campaign activities held there could jeopardize its tax-exempt status.
The JQC said the “content, timing and totality of the circumstances” suggested less honorable aims.
“While these facts may tend toward mitigation, they do not excuse Judge Levey Cohen’s decision to disseminate unverified derogatory information from a source whose identity she had not fully verified,” Morley wrote.
“To engage in such behavior is to engage in the type of negative campaigning that is common in other types of campaigns but not permitted in judicial elections. As Judge Levey Cohen agreed at the hearing, such conduct does not maintain the dignity appropriate to judicial office.”
Levey Cohen, who was admitted to the Florida Bar in September 1987, won her Broward County Court post in November 2010. She previously worked as an Assistant Attorney General, Assistant State Attorney and a Specially Appointed Public Defender.
The pending reprimand of Levey Cohen comes amid increased scrutiny of judicial conduct in Broward. On May 15, the Florida Supreme Court indefinitely suspended Broward Circuit Judge Gary Farmer without pay for repeatedly making lewd jokes from the bench and engaging in other conduct that the JQC characterized as diminishing public trust in the judiciary.
Last week, the JQC also filed charges against Broward Judge Lauren Peffer for promoting a fabricated recording of several Florida Judges and a self-published book she had not read that that criticized numerous Judges and “begins with a disclaimer and a list of over 1,300 synonyms for the word ‘sex.’”
