JUDGE TRANSFERRED OVER ALLEGED ACTIONS IN VISITATION CASE

New York Law Journal/Mark Fass

Judge Andrew G. Tarantino, Jr., a Suffolk County judge who was the subject of a searingcomplaint by Parents for Megan's Law, a children's advocacy group, has been transferred from FamilyCourt to the County Court's civil term.  According to the complaint, Tarantino granted afather who had been convicted of possessing child pornography and third-degree rape of a minorovernight visitation of his three children, supervised by his own parents.  During thevisitation hearing in January, Tarantino joked about child pornography, misstated the facts of thecase, refused to hear expert testimony regarding sexual-abuse recidivism and maintained aninappropriate relationship with the father's attorney.  The complaint was filed Tuesday withthe New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct by Parents for Megan's Law and the Crime VictimsCenter.  it was also forwarded to the Office of Court Administration, which is independentfrom the commission.  The Office of Court Administration transferred the judge out of FamilyCourt on Monday, based on the allegations underlying the complaint.  The father, DennisDeMille, a former middle school teacher, is a registered Level 2 sex offender.  He pleadedguilty to possessing pornographic photographs of 12-16 year old girls and sexually victimizing aminor.  The complaint cited such examples as the judge's joke that, to get around a law thatprohibits replicating child pornography for court records, a court officer could do little stickpictures duplicating the images underlying the father's child-pornography conviction.  Youcan do an artist's rendition, the judge joked.  Tarantino asked to view the photos todetermine whether they were pieces of art of pornography, notwithstanding the father'sconviction.  The complaint describes the judge joking about the treatment methods for sexualaddiction, asking whether a little electronic device might be placed in a patient's keyboard.
(New York)