Howie Carr column ping. Note: Yesterday’s Globe did not mention the cross dressing at all.’
When Judge Roberta goes a-courting
By Howie Carr | Sunday, February 17, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
When is the next opening on the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court?
You see, I have the perfect candidate in mind for Gov. Deval Patrick - an extinguished, er distinguished jurist who would fit perfectly in the squalid, perverted hackerama that is the Massachusetts judiciary.
I refer, of course, to outgoing federal bankruptcy judge Robert “Roberta” Somma. Talk about your impeccable credentials for a Mass. state judgeship: He is now a convicted drunken driver, and an alleged cross-dresser. He was arrested last week in Manchester, N.H., after staggering out of the Breezeway, “New Hampshire’s favorite gay bar,” in a black cocktail dress, fishnet stockings and high heels. Did I mention he was appointed to the bench by President Bush?
Judge Roberta then drove his Mercedes E320 sedan onto Elm Street, the city’s main drag, in drag, and proceeded to “rear-end,” as the Manchester Union Leader drolly put it, a pickup truck. It was 11:29 p.m.
When it comes to getting the nod from Deval, who could possibly top that looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-places resume? Other than Carl Stanley McGee, of course.
You had to know the judge was going to come to a very bad end when it was first reported in the Union Leader that, according to the police report, he “had a difficult time locating his license in his purse.”
His purse?
After a very thoughtful discussion of Somma’s predicament on my radio show, complete with Tiny Tim’s immortal recording of “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” I attempted to get the judge’s side of the story Friday. First I called the courthouse, where his “judicial assistant,” Peggy, picked up the phone.
“I know he won’t be calling YOU back!” she sneered.
So I called his house in Newbury, where he lives, or lived, with his wife, Wendy, who was almost as rude to a Manchester reporter as Peggy was to me. But I wanted to ask him a question that had been raised by a Manchester reader. Alas, there was no answer, but I decided to leave a message on his voice mail anyway.
Judge, I asked, wasn’t that a fashion faux pas, wearing that slinky little Audrey Hepburn cocktail number during Valentine’s Week, when every debutramp knows that red is de rigueur, with white, not black fishnets?
I didn’t get into any of the more sordid rumors - that he had adjourned, shall we say, to a basement room known as “the Woodshed,” or that on the back of his Mercedes is a bumper sticker: “My other robe is a Vera Wang.” I wouldn’t think of inquiring if his purse is a real designer brand or a knockoff.
I could make sport of him for blowing a .12 on the Breathalyzer. No wonder he almost fell down as he tried to get out of the car. Of course he failed the field sobriety test. Have you ever tried the “walk and turn” portion while wearing four-inch Prada heels?
When the first story appeared, minus the highly amusing details, I wondered what Judge Roberta was doing in Manchester on a weeknight. Now an unnamed city official tells the local paper, “He told police his wife was out of town . . . so he decided to come up to Manchester where no one would know him.”
And where the case couldn’t be fixed. Like Carl Stanley McGee, the $115,000-a-year Deval aide now charged with molesting a young boy in a Florida steam room, Judge Roberta forgot that there is still a large country out there where this sort of behavior is frowned upon, at least in public. That country is called America.
Oh well, it’s over now for the judge, at least until Deval can arrange a soft landing on the state bench, where he so obviously belongs. He got a bad ice cube, is all. There comes a night when the best gets tight, as Rudyard Kipling put it. It’s easy to straighten things out. Just have your “spouse” donate $1,000 to Barack Obama and you’re appointed the next day. That’s how things work around here now.
And if a judgeship doesn’t pan out, Somma might consider television. Judge Maria Lopez’ syndicated show just got canceled this week. Remember the old courtroom series “Divorce Court”? I think Judge Roberta would be perfect to preside over the revamped, vamped-up modern Massachusetts version: “Gay Divorce Court.”
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1074045