Ethics Board targets city judge

In the last year alone, the Philadelphia Board of Ethics has done battle with a state senator, a city councilman, and a powerful union leader. Its next target: a sitting judge.

In documents filed yesterday, the Ethics Board asked Common Pleas Court to force Municipal Court Judge Tom Nocella - appointed by Gov. Rendell in December to fill a vacancy - to dig into his personal bank account to help pay $39,000 in fines owed the board for nearly two years.

He would not have to pay it alone. The board also asked that the court require Ernesto DeNofa, a friend of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Phila.), to lighten his wallet as well and help eliminate the debt.

The unusual action stems from a controversy involving a high-profile political action committee with ties to Brady, who is chairman of the city's Democratic Party, and the late City Councilwoman Carol Ann Campbell, who was the party secretary.

In the winter of 2007, the Ethics Board informed the PAC, named the Appreciation Fund, that it had missed a deadline to file a campaign-finance report. After several extensions, the last expiring April 4, 2007, the PAC filed a report on April 30 of that year. Because of the lateness, the Ethics Board later issued the PAC a $1,500-a-day penalty totaling $39,000.

That was on June 1, 2007. The Ethics Board has been trying to collect its money ever since.

Nocella, then working as a private attorney who routinely provided free legal work to the Democratic Party, began representing the PAC that summer, as the Ethics Board petitioned the court in an attempt to get its money.

The PAC had not been terribly active for years. It was mainly used to raise money from city judicial candidates who were later endorsed by the Democratic Party.

But as the Ethics Board pressed to be paid the $39,000, the Appreciation Fund suddenly got new life.

In court documents, the Ethics Board alleges that Nocella and DeNofa, the PAC's treasurer, "deliberately and systematically dissipated the assets in the fund's bank account to avoid paying the fine."

For example, although it had just $16,929 remaining in its bank account at the start of last year, the PAC managed to spend all but $378.

One check, for $13,550, went to Penn's Landing Caterers on behalf of another political committee, Friends of Bob Brady, which owed the caterer money for an event held during Brady's 2007 mayoral bid. The PAC also wrote Nocella a $2,500 check for his legal services - though he had agreed not to charge the Appreciation Fund for them.

In a March 2008 deposition made public yesterday, DeNofa suggested that the PAC had no intention of paying the $39,000. Asked what it would do with the remaining $378, DeNofa responded: "My daughter has a charity she belongs to, and I have a cousin that's on another charity for autism."

It is unusual for a lawyer to be charged with misconduct in connection with a client he or she is representing. However, Ethics Board Executive Director Shane Creamer said, "The attorney can be held liable for those actions in addition to the client."

Nocella, who is running for a 10-year term on Municipal Court in the May primary, referred calls yesterday to attorney Samuel Stretton. Stretton said he had not had time to fully review the complaint but said, "We will vigorously defend him."

DeNofa, who is also assistant treasurer of Brady's congressional campaign committee, said, "We had bills to pay, and we paid some bills, and that's it.

"This is crazy," he continued. "I guess we'll get an attorney and appeal it, and see where it goes from there."