Female Legislators Seek Probe of Md. Judge
By Matthew Mosk and Katherine Shaver, Washington Post Staff Writers
Originally published in The Washington Post, February 3, 2000
Maryland's female legislators voted yesterday to file a formal complaint against a Montgomery County judge who told an 11-year-old girl "it takes two to tango," and said she was partly to blame for being molested because she invited the man into her home.
The legislators joined a widening circle of public officials calling for an investigation into Circuit Court Judge Durke G. Thompson's remarks in the Jan. 4 hearing and at least two other cases involving sexual abuse or domestic violence.
"A lot of people were outraged and embarrassed by the comments," said Del. Cheryl C. Kagan (D-Montgomery). "We would like to think people on the bench have gotten past the notion of blame the victim."
The letter of complaint to the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities asserted that Thompson's "tango" remarks constituted a violation of the Maryland Code of Judicial Conduct. The lawmakers also complained that the judge had shown a "pattern of bias" against victims, citing the cases of a woman who was carjacked from Montgomery Mall and then raped, and of a former coach at Albert Einstein High School accused of having sexual relations with four students.
Commission officials say they cannot comment on or confirm any investigations, which are confidential unless the commission decides to take action.
Thompson, a Circuit Court judge for six years, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday. In a written statement last month about his "tango" comment, Thompson said he regretted "if these words have caused concern and confusion over the seriousness and gravity with which I treated this matter."
The judge made the remarks before ordering Vladimir Chacon-Bonilla, 23, to serve 18 months in the county jail for a second-degree sex offense. The judge suspended the rest of a five-year state prison sentence and ordered him to serve three years of probation.
Montgomery prosecutors said the girl's mother found Chacon-Bonilla in the closet of her daughter's bedroom in July with his pants around his ankles and the room smelling of cigarettes and alcohol. The girl told police she met Chacon-Bonilla two months earlier through an Internet chat room and that she'd had sex with him that night in her bedroom and once before, prosecutors said.
Thompson said Chacon-Bonilla's conduct was "unacceptable" and that he had "taken advantage" of the girl, but the judge said he disagreed with the girl's father that the incident had "destroyed" the child's life.
"I don't think [the victim] is free of fault," the judge said. "I think the old adage that it takes two to tango is true here."
Thompson noted that the sentence, while falling below state sentencing guidelines of four to nine years in prison, exceeded the recommendations of the parole and probation department.
The Montgomery County chapter of the National Organization for Women also filed a complaintwith the judicial commission last month, and a state investigator is scheduled to meet with NOW representatives this week, a source said.
Attached to the lawmakers' complaint was a statement from Maureen Quinn, an Annapolis attorney who appears regularly before Montgomery County judges on domestic violence cases. "Judge Thompson stands alone in his consistent and condescending treatment of victims of domestic violence," Quinn stated.
Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler, who was the first to publicly criticize Thompson's remarks, said he doesn't know why there is a need for an investigation into the "tango" comments.
"It seems like there's not much to investigate," Gansler said. "He said what he said, and everything is right there in the transcript. Nothing was hidden. This was all done on the record and it's all public record."
