PROVIDENCE -- The state Supreme Court has ordered a Traffic Tribunal
magistrate with a history of writing bad checks to appear before the
court next week and show why she should not lose her job.
The Supreme Court's order comes after the Commission on Judicial Tenure
and Discipline last week recommended that the high court remove
magistrate Aurendina "Dina" G. Veiga from the traffic court bench.
Yesterday afternoon, the Supreme Court orered Veiga to appear before it
at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 29, and show cause why she should not
lose her $91,093 per year job as an associate magistrate.
The 11-member commission unanimously recommended Veiga's removal from
the post because of her "propensity to ignore her obligations under the
Code of Judicial conduct," according to the Supreme Court order.
At a June 14 hearing into whether Veiga had violated the Code of
Judicial Conduct, a special prosecutor told the commission that Veiga
had bounced 173 checks over a 27-month period ending in March.
The prosecutor, Marc DeSisto, also told the commission that there is no
record that Veiga ever made good on 65 of these checks.
But Veiga and her lawyer, J. Renn Olenn, insisted that Veiga had made
timely restitution on all but one of the 173 checks -- for $567.10 to an
East Providence jeweler. Veiga also testified that she may have used
money orders and cash to make good on some of the bad checks.
The Supreme Court ordered last week's hearing after learning about the
bounced check Veiga had written to Ashley Elizabeth Jewelers in December
2003. Veiga has admitted writing the bad check. She made good on it in
April.
Veiga testified that she did not know when she wrote the bad checks that
she had insufficient funds to cover them. She said she does not keep a
check register or any other record of checks that she writes.
Veiga, who is divorced and supporting three children, also testified
that she had health problems last year. She testified that she had
carpal tunnel surgery on both hands and a severe asthma attack that
landed her in the hospital for a week. She also said she fractured five
vertebrae in a fall and had to wear a body cast to work.
Veiga was appointed to the traffic court in 1999 by District Court Chief
Judge Albert E. DeRobbio.
The Supreme Court suspended her indefinitely without pay on May 6 as a
result of the jeweler's complaint. It is the second time Veiga has been
suspended from the bench without pay.
In December 2003, she was suspended for 30 days for misleading a former
client about a lawsuit she'd told him she would file for him but never
did, and then misleading the commission about her dealings with the
client after becoming a magistrate.
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