Former Judge Faced Impeachment

St. Petersburg Times
Associated Press
February 02, 2004

CLEARWATER FL - The Pasco-Pinellas Circuit Court judge who resigned last week after being reprimanded for public drunkenness did so knowing that he was likely to be impeached.

House Speaker Johnnie Byrd said legislators were united in their belief that Charles W. Cope IV, 54, needed to be removed from the bench.

"The consensus was unanimous to move forward with impeaching Judge Cope," said Byrd, a Plant City Republican.

Cope's resignation becomes official today, at which time the Florida Bar is expected to begin an investigation of his actions. Records show Cope has been a member of the bar since May 1975.

Cope Saw Potential Removal

By David Sommer
Tampa Tribune
Jan 31, 2004

CLEARWATER Fla - Charles Cope's sudden resignation of his circuit judgeship came just days after a top legislator warned that Cope might face impeachment and loss of his pension.

Legislators had been content to let the Florida court system discipline Cope for his drunken activities while on a taxpayer-funded trip to a California resort, Rep. Jeff Kottkamp, House Judiciary Committee chairman, said Friday.

But when legislators learned Cope had sued two women who had him arrested on peeping and prowling charges for allegedly trying to enter their locked hotel room, a 2- year-old plan to impeach the controversial judge was revived, the Cape Coral Republican said.

A plan to impeach Cope, a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge, was first floated two years ago, Kottkamp said.

``We decided: `Lets see what happens with the JQC,' '' he said about charges of public intoxication and other alleged misdeeds filed against Cope in December 2001 by the Judicial Qualifications Commission.

When Cope's convictions before a JQC hearing panel on charges of public intoxication and inappropriate conduct of an intimate nature resulted in an oral reprimand before the Florida Supreme Court last summer, legislators were content to let the matter drop, Kottkamp said.

``But once we found out about the lawsuit, there certainly was interest in reviving the investigation and possibly going forward with impeachment,'' the Judiciary Committee chairman said. ``Obviously, if we would have impeached him, he would lose his pension,'' he added.

Kottkamp said he laid out that prospect to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer when she dropped by his Tallahassee office last week. ``I said ... you may want to let him know we are very serious about reopening the investigation,'' Kottkamp said. ``I'm sure she shared that with him.''

Schaeffer, who was chief circuit judge when Cope was arrested in California and who testified in his defense at his 2002 trial before a JQC hearing panel, did not return a call for comment Friday. Her judicial assistant confirmed that Schaeffer was in Tallahassee last week.

Cope, 54, did not return calls for comment.

Cope sent a one-sentence letter of resignation to Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday, one day after Schaeffer, the family court administrative judge and the current chief judge, called Cope out of a divorce hearing for a private meeting.

Cope left the courthouse, and the litigants waiting in his courtroom were told he went home ill.

The Florida Bar will open an investigation into Cope's recent activities as reported in the news once his resignation becomes effective Monday, Susan Bloemendaal, chief disciplinary counsel of the Bar's Tampa office, said this week.

In August, three weeks before his reprimand for public intoxication and inappropriate conduct toward a vacationing Maryland woman during the April 2000 judicial conference in Carmel-by-

the-Sea, Calif., Cope filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court.

The lawsuit accuses veterinarian Lisa Jeanes and her mother of malicious prosecution for causing his arrest.

In it, Cope claimed to have lost wages because of his arrest, even though he was paid his full, $130,000 salary during a subsequent yearlong leave.

Also, Cope stated that ``all charges against plaintiff were favorably terminated in his favor,'' even though he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor public intoxication in a California criminal court and the JQC hearing panel convicted him of two violations of Florida's judicial cannons.

In an interview after Cope's resignation, Jeanes said she was not served with the lawsuit until just before Christmas and did not see a copy of it until Jan. 7. She said she immediately called a JQC official and had a copy of the lawsuit faxed to him two days later.

Jeanes, who did not want to testify at a California criminal trial after being grilled on a Florida witness stand at Cope's JQC trial, said she and her mother, a physician, are afraid of Cope.