Rio Arriba County Magistrate Judge Tommy Rodella should be removed from office and never allowed to run for a judgeship in New Mexico again, the state Judicial Standards Commission said in court documents filed Tuesday.

The commission found there is "clear and convincing evidence" that Rodella "committed willful misconduct as a candidate for judicial office and willful misconduct in office."

According to the petition for removal, Rodella violated judicial cannons in three separate cases: springing an acquaintance arrested for drunken driving from jail; improperly advising a man and woman from Chimayó in a rent-dispute case in exchange for political support; and improperly telling an alleged victim in a domestic violence case that she didn't have to show up to court to testify against her husband.

Furthermore, the commission says Rodella, after the commission investigation of him began, contacted law enforcement officials falsely claiming a witness against him had forged a document. This action by Rodella, the petition says, amounts to harassing or intimidating a witness.

The commission is asking the state Supreme Court to remove Rodella, who is husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Española, issue a formal reprimand to the judge and make Rodella pay the cost of investigating him.

The petition comes about two weeks following a closed-door, three-day hearing in which the commission heard from Rodella and various witnesses.

"The Commission found that in many respects (Rodella's) testimony was not credible," the "finding of facts" that accompanied the commission's petition said. "For the Commission to have accepted (Rodella's) testimony as true, the Commission would have needed to find that all of the other witnesses in those inquiries perjured themselves."

Rodella couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday.

However, last year in his written response to the commission, which was obtained by The New Mexican, the judge implied the investigation is retribution from Gov. Bill Richardson. "I should remind the Commission that its executive director, Mr. James Noel, who is intimately involved in this investigation, is the husband of Ms. Amanda Cooper one of the governor's longtime senior political operatives," Rodella said in the document.

Richardson appointed Rodella to the judge's post in March 2005. The governor initially defended his appointment. But following news accounts of a July 4, 2005, incident in which Rodella drove from Española to Tierra Amarilla to free a drunken-driving suspect, Richardson changed his tune. He met with Rodella and later announced he had asked Rodella to resign. Rodella told The New Mexican in 2005 that he had resigned on his own accord and that Richardson had never asked him to.

Rodella resumed his job as magistrate in January 2007, after winning the post in the 2006 election.

The 2005 DWI case, which has been widely covered by local news media, is one of the cases the commission investigated.

Though Rodella has said he didn't know the defendant, Carlos Manzanares, well, the commission said Rodella knows the defendant's son, who, like the judge is a member of the religious order Los Hermanos Penitentes.

In the rent-dispute case, the commission contends Rodella met with Pete and Dorothy Martinez of Chimayó when he was running in the Democratic primary for judge. Rodella promised to help them in any court case they might have if he was elected, the document said.

After Rodella won the primary, he was contacted by the couple who said they had a problem with one of their tenants. Meeting with the couple at their home, Rodella went over the rental documents and said the Martinezes had a good case. He advised them to file a case in Magistrate Court — but to wait until he took office. According to the commission, Rodella told the couple if the case was assigned to the other Rio Arriba magistrate, they should disqualify that judge so Rodella would get the case.

That's what occurred. The case ended up in Rodella's courtroom in July 2007. But when Dorothy Martinez started explaining her case, Rodella, the commission says, "cut her off and told her 'You talk too much.' " Following a break, Rodella — for reasons not explained in the commission documents — disqualified himself from the case.

The Martinezes later complained about Rodella's behavior to the commission. In November, two weeks after being notified of the investigation of that case, Rodella wrote to the state Administrative Office of the Courts saying Pete Martinez had forged a document in the rent-dispute case. That prompted an investigation of Pete Martinez by the state police — an act the commission says was an attempt to harass Martinez and/or compromise his testimony before the commission.

In the domestic violence case, the commission contends Rodella met in May with the alleged victim. She had been subpoenaed to testify at her husband's misdemeanor trial, which was in Rodella's court. She told Rodella she was thinking twice about testifying against her husband. Rodella, according to the documents, told her "that she knew her husband best, and that if she did not want to testify at trial, there would be no adverse legal consequences if she elected not to obey the subpoena."

On June 6, the alleged victim didn't show up for the trial.

The prosecutor, Thomas Banner, informed Rodella and the defendant's lawyer he had heard about Rodella's conversation with the alleged victim. Rodella "immediately started drafting a document to recuse himself," which he showed to Banner, then signed it.

The alleged victim, who heard there might be an order to arrest her for failing to appear, showed up in court about 30 minutes later. Even though he had recused himself, Rodella dismissed the case without prejudice — meaning the district attorney could refile it — on grounds of the prosecution's lack of readiness to produce witnesses.

The commission claims Rodella removed his original recusal document from the court file and replaced it with a different document.

Contact Steve Terrell at 986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com.