BIDDEFORD — In a hearing in Biddeford District Court on Tuesday, York County Probate Judge Robert Nadeau said he was not motivated by a desire for more money when he asked county commissioners for a larger salary and more court time in April 2015.

Instead, Nadeau said, it was an attempt to solve what he saw as a need for more time to deal with an evergrowing number of contested probate issues in his court – exacerbated by family issues that have arisen from the county’s opiate addiction epidemic.

When his request was denied, Nadeau immediately ordered that his schedule be changed – a move that county officials and, ultimately, a judicial oversight committee said resulted in scheduling cases months into the future.

It was that abruptness that the Maine Committee on Judicial Responsibility and Disability says is a violation of one of the canons that govern judicial conduct. The committee has recommended that Nadeau be suspended for the remainder of his elected term, which ends Dec. 31, for that and other issues.

In a report issued in January, the oversight committee said Nadeau was motivated to make the change after having his request that the “amount of funded court dates be increased and his salary disproportionately raised” was denied by York County commissioners.

The judicial committee found that Nadeau breached five judicial canons, some involving attorney appointments to his court, and others that spoke to the schedule change and related issues.

Tuesday’s hearing before retired Maine Supreme Judicial Court Justice Robert Clifford was the next step in the process that will determine whether Nadeau will be suspended. That hearing did not conclude Tuesday; another day will be scheduled.

Nadeau has said he intends to run for another four-year term in the November election. As an unenrolled candidate, he has until June 1 to submit his nomination petitions to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Clifford told the court Tuesday that his role is to review the facts of the case. “I do not make recommendations as to discipline,” he said.

After Clifford completes his findings, the matter moves on to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Cabanne Howard, director of the judicial oversight committee, said the schedule change, which was designed to pare down a lengthy trial list, appears to have worked, but the “abrupt and vindictive” manner in which Nadeau ordered the change was the issue.

York County commissioners declined to raise Nadeau’s salary from $48,000 for eight court days a month to $90,000 for 12 days, or $119,000 for a full-time judgeship. Nadeau did get a raise that year, to $54,000.

“The committee has no argument of the substance of the (schedule) change,” said Howard. “It is about the abruptness.”

In another of the alleged judicial canon breeches, Howard said Nadeau told several litigants that if they were unhappy with the speed with which their cases were being processed, they should direct their concerns to the county manager or county commissioners.

The judicial oversight report also addressed complaints from seven York County attorneys whom Nadeau had told probate register Carol Lovejoy by email not to appoint as courtappointed lawyers for indigent litigants or as guardians ad litem.

His reasons were that they had previously worked for his law firm, were associates of attorneys formerly with his law practice, and because one attorney sent him an “unsolicited emotional and highly critical email,” according to the report.

Howard said if Nadeau felt he had a problem with the attorneys, he should have disqualified himself as judge in cases where they represented clients.

Nadeau countered that Lovejoy was concerned about the county budget, and that disqualifying himself as judge would have meant other arrangements would have to have been made for the cases, resulting in a $700 per day fee.

After seeking an ethics opinion, he said he told Lovejoy to contact lawyers to ask if they wanted appointments, and also made the offer through the York County Bar Association. He said he reversed his decision about a specific attorney after the attorney filed for a reconsideration for court appointments.

Attorney Thomas Elias, who worked for Nadeau’s private law firm from 2000 to 2001 and was the subject of a lawsuit by Nadeau following his departure, was among several lawyers testifying before Clifford on Tuesday. He said the email to Lovejoy called Nadeau’s truthfulness into question.

“I understood the email meant I was not to be trusted or believed,” said Elias.

He said he found the email very disturbing, and that he also declined to represent private clients before the probate court because he felt it would not be fair to them.

In another complaint addressed by the oversight committee, Nadeau had ordered an attorney to destroy an email she had obtained because, he said, he had confidentiality concerns. He later reported the attorney to the Maine Board of Bar Overseers.

On Tuesday, he said he had later asked the prosecutor not to proceed with the case. He admitted he didn’t say so in his testimony to the bar overseers , but said he wrote a latter afterward asking them to drop it.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 282- 1535, ext. 327.