Panel wants Judge Patricia Kerr Karasov censured

Judge Patricia Kerr Karasov should be censured and suspended 90 days without pay for living outside her Hennepin County district and not cooperating with an investigation into the allegations, a state Board on Judicial Standards panel recommended Friday.

The panel, which had been urged to remove Karasov from office, called her actions "a significant violation," namely her "dissembling and her lack of good-faith cooperation with the board's investigation." The findings twice refer to the judge's statements as "not credible" and "calculated."

Karasov, a Hennepin County judge for 15 years, said she will challenge the recommendation by the three-member fact-finding panel. The State Supreme Court will make the final decision on whether to enforce it.

Karasov, 59, was accused of living in a Chisago City lake home from April 2007 until the fall of 2009, when she started living part time in her daughter's Minneapolis apartment. State rules require judges to live in the district they serve.

The board also accused Karasov of hindering the investigation by failing to cooperate. A third allegation by the board that Karasov improperly took a homestead tax credit for her Edina townhouse was later withdrawn, according to the finding.

Karasov denied all of the allegations.

Last month Judicial Board attorneys Steven Wolter and Douglas Kelley recommended to the fact-finding panel that Karasov be removed from office.

In an e-mailed statement, Karasov said she was "greatly disappointed" and plans to file a motion to contest the recommendation. The judge said she has served county residents "without any disciplinary problems, and hope[s] to continue to serve them in the future."

Kelley said each side has 60 days to appeal, and he will discuss with the board whether it wants to do so. He will also ask the board whether it wants to appeal the panel's refusal to reopen the record and consider an affidavit from the head of Minneapolis homicide, Lt. Rick Zimmerman, who contends Karasov told him in March 2008 that she was moving to Chisago City.

Kelley said he will also discuss whether to refer the board's findings to Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson for so-called "quo warranto" proceedings to determine whether Karasov left her judicial position as soon as she lived outside the district. The attorney general's office would conduct an investigation into the matter, he said. If she is found to have vacated her office, Karasov could only return by reelection or reappointment.

A three-day hearing in January delved into a litany of personal information about Karasov and her family, including her two daughters and her ex-husband, Hennepin County District Judge Fred Karasov.

She represented herself during the hearing, during which she cross-examined her ex-husband and his wife. Witnesses also included people who said they were neighbors of Karasov when she lived at the Chisago City lake home, northeast of the Twin Cities and well outside her district.

According to the board, Karasov, who was elected to serve in the Fourth Judicial District in 1995, lived in Chisago City with county sheriff's deputy Catherine Chrisman from April 2007 until the fall of 2009.

'Appearance of impropriety'

The board, which had received a complaint about the residency rules violation, alleged that on the same day it sent Karasov a letter asking where she lived, she began arrangements to have her name added to the lease on her daughter's Hennepin County apartment.

The board said she paid only $25 per month toward the apartment rent, while renting out an Edina townhouse that she hadn't been able to sell.

The board alleged that Karasov tried to justify withholding information about her residences by saying that a man had stalked her. She refused to tell the board the man's name or give other details, saying "the board does not have unlimited power to delve into the personal life of every judge."

The panel making the recommendation included Vivian Jenkins Nelsen, Kenneth R. White and retired District Court Judge Lawrence T. Collins. It wrote that "at the very least" Karasov's actions created an appearance of impropriety, one thing she did admit amid denials that she violated the rules or hindered the investigation.

"Judge Karasov's misconduct, and her abiding failure to appreciate the extent and gravity of it, creates a risk of eroding the public's faith and confidence in the integrity of the judiciary," the finding said.

Staff writer Rochelle Olson contributed to this report. Abby Simons • 612-673-4921