500 POUND DEFROCKED VEGAS JUDGE’S BAD LUCK CONTINUES WITH LOSS OF LIBEL SUIT

For our readers who are unfamiliar with the bizarre saga that was/is (former) Las Vegas judge Elizabeth Halverson, you can get up to speed with these ABA Journal posts here, here, here, and here, and (on a more humorous vein) the Above the Law posts archived here, and our prior post here.

Halverson—who is too fat to walk and zips around on a motorized scooter—started her legal career in San Francisco, California when she was known as Elizabeth LaMacchia, until she 1. Married an ex-felon on parole named Ed Halverson and 2. Moved to Las Vegas to take a clerkship position with the chief judge, Kathy Hardcastle.

Halverson ran for judge against Mr. Hardcastle, was fired by Mrs. Hardcastle, and was ultimately elected to the Vegas bench herself. Much hilarity ensued.

Some highlights:

Halverson treated her bailiff Jonnie Jordan like a slave; requiring him to rub her corpulent feet, microwave her vast quantities of food in her smelly bathroom, clean the blizzard of sunflower seeds and cookie crumbs that ultimately settled on her chambers floor, fetch ice water, and other demeaning chores.

She was not much nicer to her other staff—ultimately firing her clerk Ileen Spoor, after accusing Spoor and her Court Recorder of conspiring with Judge Hardcastle to do her in.

Halverson referred to another courtroom employee as a “faux Jew” and another staff member as “the devil incarnate”—and at one point Jordan filed a discrimination complaint and was reassigned and her fatness replaced her law clerk and courtroom clerk with two women who made Halverson seem hot in comparison.


Did we mentioned she referred to her husband Ed as “bitch” and once asked her bailiff to shoot “Evil Ed”, or that Halverson used to put Ed under oath to make sure that he was doing his household chores and had dinner with sitting jurors, requiring a mistrial to be declared in one case? Or that her yard and swimming pool were so filthy that the County condemned her home as a "health hazard"? Or that she slept on the bench during trials?

Halverson hired unlicensed private “body guards”—claiming that sinister forces threatened her life (get a clue lady, they’re called Oreos)—prompting Judge Hardcastle to lock Halverson out of the courthouse for “security violations”. But not before Halverson barricaded herself in chambers with two bodyguards and called 911, claiming that court Administrator Chuck Short was trying to “assault her”.

The Nevada Supreme Court ordered Halverson back into the courthouse , but the Nevada judicial authorities got wind of Halverson’s antics (which by then were all over the internet—including our prior post here), and Halverson was temporarily suspended pending the filing of formal disciplinary charges.

Ultimately, the Nevada Supreme Court removed Halverson from the bench for multiple acts of misconduct—but not before Halverson appeared with her attorney on a local television station and accused her former courtroom clerk Spoor of “fixing tickets”, Spoor fired back with a libel suit, and Las Vegas’ daily news paper started referring to Halverson as Jabba-the-Judge.

Then things started really going downhill for the 500 pound former jurist.

Ex-convict husband “Evil Ed”—apparently weary from years of verbal abuse from the 500 pound former jurist—snapped and did his jail-house best to beat Halverson to death with a cast iron frying pan (no symbolism there).

“Evil Ed” went off to spend another three to ten years in the joint for assault with a deadly frying pan, and Halverson went into the hospital for an extended stay.

And now this from Las Vegas Chanel 13 News:

Former District Judge Elizabeth Halverson has lost a civil suit filed against her by a former employee.

A judge ruled Friday that Halverson is guilty of defamation and other charges and should pay monetary damages.

Halverson was sued by her former assistant Ileen Spoor who claimed Halverson tried to ruin her reputation by lying to the media.

This makes Halverson zero for four in the lawsuit department—including a San Francisco rent control lawsuit that resulted in a $40,000 judgment against the jurist, the dismissal of Halverson’s lawsuits against, respectively, the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline and the Nevada Supreme Court for violating the American’s with Disabilities Act, and Halverson’s lawsuit in the Nevada Supreme Court to invalidate Nevada’s system of making judges who filled empty judicial seats run for election again in two years.

Have we heard the last of Halverson?

Somehow we doubt it.

Related:

Controversial Ex-Judge Loses Libel Suit Brought By Former Assistant (ABA, J.)

Former assistant wins lawsuit against Halverson (Las Vegas Review Journal)

But Things Were Going So Well ... (Wild Wild Law Blog)