A California judge is facing accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, antisemitic comments, drug use and a slew of ethic violations, according to a complaint filed by a state agency.
The state’s commission on judicial performance, which investigates alleged judicial misconduct, announced last week that it had filed formal proceedings to conduct an inquiry into Gregory J Kreis, a Humboldt county judge.
Kreis is charged with “misconduct in office, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute”. The complaint lists 19 counts against him and details years of bad behavior, including repeatedly calling a colleague a “Jewboy”, pantomiming “something similar to a lap dance” against the wife of another colleague as she held her child, and drinking and driving.
The judge in Humboldt county, on the state’s far north coast, was first appointed to the bench in 2017 by then governor Jerry Brown while working at the county public defender’s office as a supervising attorney. Kreis is currently seeking re-election and has cited his “commitment to public service and the law” on his campaign website.
He has described the allegations against him as “outright lies”.
The complaint details disturbing behavior over the course of several years, both before and after he became a judge.
During a May 2019 campout with several employees from the public defender’s office, Kreis is alleged to have repeatedly demeaned deputy public defender Rory Kalin, referring to him as a “Jewboy” multiple times, and at one point pushed him off a moving boat. At the same gathering, he allegedly performed the “lap dance” on the wife of a colleague and “moaned or made other noises that suggested you were having sex”.
Kalin filed lawsuits against the county and Kreis, which were later dismissed.
Kreis is also accused of having an “intimate relationship” with the court’s family law facilitator. A courtroom clerk allegedly shared her suspicions of an affair between the two with other staff members and Kreis complained to the presiding judge about the clerk’s behavior, the complaint states. The clerk was fired.
At a 2018 party, Kreis allegedly grabbed the buttocks of a husband and his wife even after the woman told him not to do so.
In 2019, Kreis allegedly took several women and a child on a driving tour while drinking, and allowed passengers to drink.
At a party in 2015, before he became a judge, Kreis allegedly went into his friend’s bedroom while she was sleeping, pulled down his pants and “had [his] penis out and near her face as [he] tried to awaken her”, according to the complaint.
He is also accused of repeatedly failing to recuse himself from cases involving people he knew well and failing to disclose those relationships.
In a statement on Instagram, Kreis said he was “confident the allegations and outright lies will be dismissed and clear my name”. He appeared to allege that the timing of the complaint was intended to affect his re-election campaign.
