Accused judge meets with boss

Details of the conversation between Judge Charles W. Cope and Chief Judge David Demers were not revealed.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 14, 2001

The judge accused of trying to get into the hotel room of two women in Carmel, Calif., met with his boss Friday.

The exact nature of the discussion between Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Charles W. Cope, charged with two misdemeanors, and Chief Judge David Demers was not revealed by either man.

But Demers said in an interview that there was one thing in particular he didn't want Cope to tell him about: Cope's arrest on April 5.

Demers said he doesn't need to hear details about the case from Cope, though Demers won't say why.

"I don't think it's really appropriate for me to comment on what we're going to discuss," Demers said shortly before their afternoon meeting. "It won't be anything earth-shaking. I want to see how he's feeling and that's about it."

As the two met, Cope's California attorney said Cope has retained Florida counsel to represent him during procedures by the Judicial Qualifications Commission, a Florida group that regulates judges.

The JQC, which has the authority to suspend or remove a judge for violating judicial canons, will not confirm whether it is investigating Cope.

Cope, 52, and his California attorney, Tom Worthington, would not reveal the identity of the Florida lawyer now representing Cope.

Carmel police, meantime, confirm that officers thought Cope was drinking prior to his 1:15 a.m. arrest, though they would not provide specifics.

Police previously had refused to describe his condition at the time of his arrest. They did not give him a field sobriety or blood-alcohol test.

Cope was visiting Carmel for a judicial conference when, while walking by the Normandy Inn on April 4, he noticed two women having a "heart-to-heart" conversation on the porch of the hotel about a personal matter, police said.

Cope interjected himself into the conversation, police said. Later, an officer who happened by described Cope and the women -- a 64-year-old Maryland woman and her 31-year-old daughter -- as all being intoxicated.

When Cope left, the women told police, they could not find their hotel key.

At 12:30 a.m. the next day, the women were awakened when Cope opened their hotel room, police said. The door's chain-lock prevented him from entering and the women dialed 911, police said.

Cope was stopped by police about a block away and arrested. Police charged him with two misdemeanors: prowling/loitering and peering into an occupied dwelling. No trial date is set.

Police searched Cope, his room at another nearby hotel and the area he had walked through, but did not find a metal room key.

The door of the women's hotel room is the type that does not lock automatically when it is closed and must be locked from the inside.

"They are convinced, and maintain strongly, that the door was locked when, unannounced and unexpected, he opened the door to the room," said Carmel police Lt. Warren Poitras.

"Where the key is now is a mystery," he said.

Cope has pleaded not guilty and his attorney says the women, perhaps influenced by alcohol, misidentified Cope as the man who tried to enter their room.

Facing up to six months in jail, he is free on bail.

This is Cope's second arrest. In 1996, he was charged with DUI while at a judicial conference. That charge was later dismissed.

In an interview on Thursday, Judge Susan Schaeffer, chief judge at the time of the arrest, said Cope informed her of the arrest not long afterward.

Schaeffer said she told Demers, when he took over as chief July 1, generally that Cope had a problem. She didn't mention a criminal charge.

After talking to Cope and reading the police report, Schaeffer said she doesn't think he is guilty.

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