Dixie Dent says she expected working for Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Martin Zilber was going to be a challenge, one she welcomed.
But within weeks of being hired as his judicial assistant, she told
NBC 6 Investigators, she sensed the judge was acting inappropriately.
Over the next 18 months, she would later tell the state Judicial
Qualifications Commission (JQC), she witnessed him not showing up for
work, requiring her and a bailiff to do personal tasks and endure what
she said was a rant from the judge after she informed him she was
pregnant.
Having had previous miscarriages, she said she needed the job's
health benefits and endured his behavior - even when he required her to
wheel his heavy chair up several floors to his courtroom bench while she
was pregnant, which Zilber admitted doing.
"I had to put up with it," she said in an exclusive interview, "but
what I saw, (was) injustice to the constituents of Miami-Dade County."
In the end, the JQC found probable cause to support most of her
allegations and Zilber last week entered into a stipulation where he
admitted his behavior was “intemperate, inappropriate and damaged the
public’s perception of the judiciary.”
He also agreed to the recommended discipline: a 60-day suspension
without pay from his $161,000-a-year job and a $30,000 fine, calculated
to cover the proceeds of 51 days he was absent from the courthouse
without notifying court administration he was taking leave.
A call to the judge's chambers seeking his comment on the matter was
not returned. But attorney Deborah Baker, who said she spoke to Zilber's
lawyer after NBC 6 inquired of the judge, volunteered that she had
"never seen him treat a woman any different than a man" and, as far as
she could tell from years of practicing before him, there "wasn't a
sexist bone in his body."
In recommending the discipline to the Florida Supreme Court, the JQC
notes Zilber "immediately accepted responsibility (and) expressed
remorse for his intemperate treatment and misuse of his court staff."
He admitted requiring his staff to do more than help run the
courtroom, including at times doing his online shopping, registering his
car, working on his scrap book and picking up his Art Basel tickets.
Dent said it did not take her long to realize "he wasn’t being honest
with his time sheet. It was made very clear to me that the most
important thing was to hold up the appearance that he was there, but in
reality that wasn’t happening."
Not there on many Mondays and Fridays, she said, and not there for a
week last August when he vacationed in Malibu without taking leave, the
judge subsequently admitted, though he said he did do some work while in
California.
"There’s a lot of good judges on the bench who don't behave this way,
and it’s guys like this that are abusing their power, taking advantage
of people like Dixie," said attorney Bruce Jacobs, who has his own
long-running beef with the judge over contentious foreclosure
litigation.
He is helping Dent challenge the deal Zilber reached with the JQC,
which only recommends discipline to the state Supreme Court, which has
final say.
"We’re asking that the Florida Supreme Court reject the JQC’s
recommendation, which we think is a slap on the wrist, and we want him
removed from the bench and disbarred," Jacobs said.
Dent said she is glad he is accepting responsibility, but one personal attack, she said, still hurts.
"The moment I told him I was pregnant, he said, 'Oh geez. This is
such an inconvenience. This is going to ruin all my plans. This is the
worst possible time for you to be pregnant,'" she recalled.
Soon after, Zilber was "requiring his pregnant JA to wheel his chair
up several floors to the courtroom and then lift it onto the dais prior
to hearings," the JQC found and Zilber admitted, later telling an
investigator he made other arrangements "once the issue was brought to
his attention."
"I simply could not do it because it was so heavy and I wasn’t going to risk the baby," Dent said.
After having her daughter and returning from leave, Dent said the
final straw came in August when Zilber berated her over a Zoom session
witnessed by her other children.
Her family, she said, told her, "'You know, we're going to figure it
out. We’re going to figure it out together, but you’re going to resign
because you should not be subjected to this and the kids should not
continue seeing this.'"
She submitted her resignation the next day.
