DENVER—An appeals court judge is reviewing a personal misconduct complaint against Edward W. Nottingham, the chief federal district judge in Colorado.
Robert H. Henry, chief judge of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, said in court documents released Thursday that he would take under advisement a complaint that a judge “brought disrepute to the judiciary.”
Henry did not name the judge, because federal rules prohibit it. But Sean Harrington, who heads a legal technology firm, confirmed in a telephone interview that Henry is reviewing a complaint Harrington filed about Nottingham.
Harrington’s complaint, filed in January, cited news media reports that Nottingham allegedly viewed adult Web sites on his government computer in his chambers, and that Nottingham had testified in a divorce case last year that he spent $3,000 at a strip club one night.
Nottingham’s attorney, Stephen Peters, did not immediately return a phone call Friday. Peters told The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News he had no comment on the complaint but that his client looked forward to resolving the issue.
Reports of the strip club incident emerged in August, when KUSA-TV in Denver obtained sealed transcripts from Nottingham’s divorce trial.
Nottingham issued a statement at the time saying the reports dealt with “private and personal matters involving human frailties and foibles” and that they became public because of “protracted, bitter divorce proceedings.”
Harrington’s complaint also accused Nottingham of failing to review a lawsuit Harrington had filed. Henry dismissed that part of the complaint.
Nottingham, the chief U.S. District judge in Colorado, presided over the high-profile trial of former Qwest Communications CEO Joe Nacchio last year. Nacchio is appealing his conviction on 19 counts of insider trading.
