Attorneys for a Newport Beach hand surgeon and his girlfriend, who are charged with drugging and raping women, are seeking to have an Orange County Superior Court judge overseeing their case disqualified following several hearings that featured sharp exchanges between the judge and prosecutors.
In a motion filed on Tuesday, the defense attorneys argue that Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg has displayed a bias that prohibits Grant Robicheaux, 40, and Cerissa Laura Riley, 34, from being able to get a fair trial.
A week ago, Bromberg granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss charged related to two alleged rape victims in the case. Both said they no longer wanted to participate in the case, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors have previously said they wanted to narrow the charges down to one alleged victim.
With last Wednesday’s ruling, the doctor now faces charges involving five alleged victims and Riley for three alleged victims. The next hearing in the case is Aug. 13, when Bromberg could make a ruling on the prosecution’s request to amend the case against the defendants.
The defense attorneys in the motion to disqualify Bromberg said “the tone, tenor and language used by Judge Bromberg against the Attorney General’s Office … at the most recent hearing in this case … would lead any reasonable observer to conclude that this judge presents an appearance of bias in favor of the prosecution and conviction of Robicheaux and Riley.”
The attorneys argued that Bromberg made critical remarks about the Attorney General’s Office prosecutors as well as the defense team’s attorney, Philip Cohen. In particular, the motion argues that Bromberg demonstrated bias against Cohen by saying he had misstated the law and misstated the facts of the case, which is “an assertion of intentional malfeasance against Robicheaux’s attorney made in front of the press and the public.”
Bromberg made comments during hearings in May and June “appearing to reflect animus and derision toward lawyers for both sides as well as levied personal attacks as to the competency, professionalism, and, most disturbingly, the integrity of the various attorneys,” their motion says.
The motion also focuses on Bromberg accusing prosecutors of making a “veiled threat” by declaring they wanted to dismiss charges or else they would not follow through with the prosecution. At that hearing in June, Bromberg said normally prosecutors take a case to a preliminary hearing, which hasn’t happened in this case, and then amend the complaint when they wouldn’t need the judge’s permission.
But prosecutors said they felt it would be unethical to go forward with a preliminary hearing if they did not think they could prove the entire case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The defense attorneys contend Bromberg was “biased in favor of maintaining as much as possible the status quo of the operative complaint in this case (filed prior to the Attorney General’s Office involvement) and that the Attorney General’s Office became the target of such bias when they sought to amend the current complaint.”
The defense attorneys were also attempting to subpoena pool camera footage of the entire proceedings from CBS because they argue that it provides a fuller appreciation of their argument than a court transcript.