Former Judge Is Cleared of Most Charges

A former Orange County Superior Court judge accused of releasing suspects at the request of a longtime friend has been cleared of most misconduct charges by a panel of the state Commission on Judicial Performance.

The three-judge panel, in a report released Thursday, said Luis A. Cardenas did not show favoritism by releasing or reducing the bail of more than 20 clients of criminal defense attorney Leonard Basinger.

The panel did conclude that Cardenas’ actions amounted to misconduct in four cases, including one in which he released a fraud defendant who has not yet been apprehended again. Misconduct was also found in a case in which Cardenas, while on vacation, ordered a $20,000 bail reduction for an alleged drug offender.

But while Basinger “took advantage” of Cardenas and the relationship gave rise to the “specter of impropriety,” the panel said Cardenas’ actions did not constitute serious judicial misconduct.

“The [judges] are unable to conclude . . . that any of [Cardenas’] actions, including those that we find to constitute prejudicial misconduct, were based or taken substantially on friendship,” the report reads.

The report caps a two-year investigation into Cardenas’ actions both as a judge and as a sitting judge after he retired in March 1996. The findings will now be forwarded to the commission for possible disciplinary action.

Cardenas, who was not available for comment, could be censured or barred from sitting on state courts. A decision is not expected for several months. Cardenas now works as a private mediator.

Jennifer Keller, Cardenas’ former defense attorney, said the report vindicates Cardenas.

“The [judges] correctly perceived that Judge Cardenas is a very good judge who may have have made judgment errors, but that they did not rise to the level of actionable misconduct,” she said. “They concluded that nothing he did was from an ill or corrupt motive.”

Last year, commission examiners accused Cardenas of releasing 11 defendants at the request of Basinger over a three-year period. He was also accused of reducing bail or modifying probation terms of 12 more clients of Basinger and his daughter, Ginger Larson Kelly, another defense attorney.

Cardenas took action on most of the cases even though he was not the assigned judge.

At the hearing earlier this year, Cardenas said his friendship with Basinger had unfairly tainted his reputation. Basinger was disbarred, then reinstated in the early 1990s after being convicted of stealing client’s money.