Judge Said He Beat Wife, Now Faces Ouster

The groundswell to oust a judge who ignored a woman’s pleas for protection before her ex-boyfriend killed her increased Friday after a report that the judge once admitted beating his own wife, saying “It happens.”

The call for Judge Lorin Duckman’s ouster followed two recent decisions that had bad outcomes. First, he released the convicted rapist who later killed his girlfriend, saying she was just bruised, not disfigured. Then, police said he had also released a convicted batterer who dragged his ex-girlfriend down a flight of stairs and punched her in the face.

Friday’s New York Post reported that Duckman, while talking to lawyers in his chambers during a 1991 trial of a man later acquitted of beating his girlfriend, said “Even I have beat my wife! It happens, and you can’t always do something about it.”

Duckman denied through his attorney, Ronald Russo, that he ever beat his wife.