CHARLESTON – A Monongalia County magistrate has resigned following a second admonishment in less than a year by the state Judicial Investigation Commission.
Magistrate Todd Gaujot’s resignation was effective February 27. He also agreed never to seek judicial office again in the state, according to the admonishment signed February 28 by JIC Chairman Alan D. Moats.
The latest JIC admonishment says Gaujot violated 10 rules in relation to complaints filed July 27 and December 1.
The July complaint was filed by Dana Johnson, director of the Monongalia County Dog Wardens & Canine Adoption Center. According to that complaint, a dog warden was dispatched June 21 to pick up two dogs in a hot car at West Virginia University Hospital.
Later that afternoon, the owner of the dogs and her daughter appeared before in court and talked to Gaujot about getting their dogs back. Gaujot called the county prosecutor’s office, and Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Ted Nordstrom said Gaujot “seemed to be working on behalf of the (owner and her daughter) as opposed to doing what a magistrate does, advising them of how the process works and moving on.”
When Nordstrom and another assistant prosecutor (now Prosecuting Attorney Gabriella Mucciola) called Gaujot back to discuss the issue, they told him a hearing would need to be scheduled before the animals possibly could be returned to the owner. They also told him it should be heard by another magistrate because of his talks with the owner.
“Instead of scheduling a hearing, (Gaujot) called the Adoption Center and told them to immediately return the dogs to the owner,” the admonishment states. “Johnson believed she had no choice but to release the dogs because the magistrate ‘told me to.’
“Johnson has worked at the Adoption Center for over 20 years and she testified that this was the only time she recalls receiving a call from a magistrate ordering her to release the dogs without benefit of a seizure hearing.”
When the owner and her daughter arrived at the center, Johnson made them go back to magistrate court to get a seizing hearing date. When they returned later with the information, Johnson released the dogs.
At the seizure hearing, the other magistrate ordered the dogs impounded until the final hearing, where the dogs were released to the owners.
The December complaint against Gaujot was filed by Judicial Disciplinary Counsel related to his interactions with a deputy magistrate clerk.
Domestic violence orders must be uploaded immediately to the Domestic Violence Registry to protect the alleged victim, according to the admonishment. On October 24, the clerk asked Gaujot about a domestic violence order he had failed to timely provide for upload.
“She jokingly said to him, ‘I’m going to smack your fingers if you don’t put that DV order in there,’” the admonishment states. “(Gaujot) didn’t directly respond to her but walked into his office and angrily and loudly said, ‘F--k her’ to his assistant.”
“The reason I knew he was already in a bad mood is because he had called his assistant prior to that and not wanted to do the arraignments that morning,” the clerk testified. “He had wanted her to find someone else to do the arraignments. And she had reached out to Magistrate Holepit (who) declined and said she would not do his arraignments, and then (Gaujot) had some choice words for her as well, not directly to her face, but on the phone.
“And I was in (his assitstant’s) office, so I heard the like … he said the same thing he said to me, but he called her other words and, honestly, just other profanities.”
The clerk says the DV order appeared on her desk later that day. The following day, she says Gaujot apologized for being “a d—k” the day before.
“It was because I was f’ing swamped and so I was pissed off,” he told her.
Later that day, there was a question about bond paperwork. Gaujot called the clerk from the courtroom and yelled at her to immediately get the paperwork and get the defendant bonded out. She told him she couldn’t because she had not yet received the paperwork. She said he became more and more irate before she hung up.
“In the course of probably 30 seconds, he’s flying, I mean like he came out of nowhere,” the clerk testified. “All of a sudden, he is like inches from my window screaming at me, ‘Don’t you ever f’ing hang that phone up. Do you know who I am? I’m telling you.’
“I mean his face was red, his neck is like bulging. I mean it was – I’ve not really seen anything like that to tell you the honest truth. I mean it was crazy. At the time, he – it scared me so much that I got up off my chair and the only thing I knew to do, I had to get away from him. So I walked in the back … and there I just broke down.”
Gaujot was in a public corridor when he yelled at the clerk. After learning of the incident, the magistrate clerk reminded Gaujot “we are all adults and we don’t act like this in the place of employment.”
The admonishment mentions other revelations discovered during the investigation into Gaujot.
* He was chronically late for work, especially on intake days when he was required to be there at 8 a.m., sometimes not arriving until 9:30 or 10 despite living across the street from the judicial facility. Other magistrates were forced to carry out Gaujot’s duties on top of their own.
* Gaujot had a habit of unwanted hugging or touching people. It says he hugged a female defendant after an arraignment and told her he was going to make her his “special project.”
* Scores of improper photos, memes and text messages unbecoming a judicial officer were found on his court-issued cell phone. It says he shared the items with multiple people from his court-issued phone.
The JIC unanimously found probable cause to find Gaujot violated at least 15 rules of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Those were compliance with the law, confidence in the judiciary, avoiding abuse of the prestige of judicial office, giving precedence to the duties of judicial office, impartiality and fairness, bias, prejudice, harassment, competence, diligence and cooperation, decorum, demeanor and communication with jurors, ex parte communications and extrajudicial activities in general.
In May, Gaujot was admonished by the JIC for violating five rules following two other complaints against him.
In one of those complaints, he was accused of making inappropriate comments to the media and used vulgarity to police officers in a case of a Westover man who had been charged with felony destruction of property for jumping on several police cruisers in November.
In the second one, Gaujot responded to a captain with the Preston County Sheriff’s Department in a vulgar manner after Gaujot wouldn’t set bond in a case as requested by the prosecutor. Gaujot became upset when the captain then threatened to go to the press and filing a judicial ethics complaint against him.
Monongalia Chief Circuit Judge Perri Jo DeChristopher will appoint someone to serve the rest of Gaujot’s term. He is the son of longtime Monongalia Circuit Judge Phillip D. Gaujot, who retired last year.
West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission complaint numbers 84-2022 (Johnson) and 133-2022 (JDC)