Former Superior Court Judge Romano DiBenedetto is facing new judicial misconduct charges after investigators said he misrepresented his knowledge of online connections with apparent sex workers.
The Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct (ACJC) filed the complaint on April 27. The new charges come after DiBenedetto submitted a letter of retirement effective April 1.
DiBenedetto served in Alaska’s Second Judicial District, based in Nome. He had already been the subject of a separate misconduct investigation that led ACJC to recommend a public reprimand earlier this year. That case included findings related to delayed court proceedings, scheduling disruptions and imitations of Alaska Native accents.
The latest charges center on a 2023 complaint involving DiBenedetto’s personal Facebook account. According to the charges filed by the commission, DiBenedetto’s Facebook use implied public “friendships with apparent female sex workers” while being easily viewable to the public.
When questioned by commission staff in 2023, DiBenedetto “expressed surprise” about those apparent Facebook connections and denied knowing about them or how they could be connected to him, according to the complaint. The commission said DiBenedetto agreed to take steps to remove the “problematic” posts.
But in the new complaint, the commission alleges DiBenedetto misrepresented his knowledge of why the posts appeared on his Facebook page “with the intent to affect the Commission’s actions.” The commission said it had closed the earlier complaint file based on those alleged false statements and misrepresentations.
The complaint said ACJC’s now-former executive director, Marla Greenstein, was contacted on Feb. 10 by the director of the Alaska Department of Law’s Criminal Division. According to the complaint, the director shared information from a Department of Public Safety analyst who recognized DiBenedetto’s name in two separate closed criminal investigations into sex trafficking.
The complaint said one investigation took place in 2021 and the other in 2023. As part of electronic data collected in those investigations, DiBenedetto’s phone number appeared once in each case, according to the commission. The complaint said each call was to a different victim of the sex trafficking operation and lasted about 20 seconds.
The commission did not accuse DiBenedetto of committing a crime, rather that he alleged violations of state law governing judicial conduct.
“By associating with individuals who appeared to be sex workers on a Facebook page that showed him as a judge, and further misrepresenting his knowledge and intent to associate with those individuals throughout the Judicial Conduct investigation, Judge DiBenedetto intentionally deceived the Commission,” the complaint stated.
Under commission rules, DiBenedetto has 20 days to file a response.
DiBenedetto was appointed to the bench in 2017 and retained by voters in 2020. His resignation leaves a vacancy in the Second Judicial District, which serves Nome and a large portion of Western and Northwest Alaska. The Alaska Court System has said it will continue using visiting and pro tempore judges to serve Nome until the position is filled.
