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This post is one in a partnership between the Rochester Beacon and veteran reporter Gary Craig, featuring articles published on his Substack site.
Last week what appeared to be a relatively inconsequential move occurred in Ontario County courts: One judge transferred a case to another.
On its face, the instance in which County Court Judge Kristina “Kitty” Karle handed over a criminal case to County Court Judge Frederick Reed seemed of little import, especially since Reed initially had the case.
But what precipitated the move is the more interesting part of the exchange: That was a request from defense lawyer Matthew Lembke that Karle disqualify herself from the case. Lembke represents Zachary Rogers, accused of sexual assault of a child under 13.
Why would Lembke make the request? Because, for months, papers have circulated in Ontario County legal circles, especially in the criminal defense arena, alleging that Karle may be too favorable toward the county’s new district attorney, Jason MacBride.
To be fair, these papers are largely a single affidavit from a single individual, an Ontario County Sheriff’s Office investigator who alleges that Karle improperly encouraged him to support MacBride in last year’s election.
Judges can’t intervene in politics.
A former assistant district attorney, Peter Van Dellon, circulated the affidavit with a December resignation letter he wrote saying that the affidavit is proof that Karle should recuse herself from cases prosecuted by the Ontario County DA’s office. This obviously would be quite the stride because it would, if this practice were followed, likely require special prosecutors for the criminal cases before Karle.
Lembke was preparing for a hearing on the recusal request, scheduled for May 6, when the transfer was made and the hearing became moot. Reed had earlier moved the case to Karle.
“I don’t know the internal mechanism by which the case was transferred from Judge Karle to Judge Reed,” Lembke says. He declined to discuss why he asked for the recusal, pointing to his court papers.
Also, while this may seem like an internal courthouse issue, there clearly are undercurrents that reach beyond: Namely, there was intense friction in the legal arena with the DA’s race last year, and hard feelings still linger.
In that race, MacBride, who had been a prosecutor in the office, narrowly defeated incumbent Jim Ritts in the Republican primary. Ritts left the office, and MacBride is now DA. Supporters of both continue to insist that the office was either well-managed or poorly managed, depending on their DA of choice.
The DA’s race divided many people in Ontario law enforcement circles. The race took an especially odd turn with revelations that the DA’s office, while under Ritts’ leadership, held an Election Day costume party in the courthouse in 2024, where alcohol was present. That issue became part of the political fodder for the race.
Pictures and videos of the party circulated during the contest.
Meanwhile, MacBride is now building a staff that includes experienced attorneys, including James Nobles, a well-known defense lawyer who was a former prosecutor, and Sara Van Strydonck, who headed the Special Victims Unit in Monroe County and prosecuted dozens of child and sex abuse cases.
Allegations of favoritism
Key to Lembke’s recusal request was a June 2025 affidavit from Sheriff’s Investigator Nathan Bowerman. Bowerman said that he met with Karle in February 2025 to have a search warrant approved and she inquired about the DA’s race.
“Judge Karle was asking for me to support Jason MacBride and stating that she felt James Ritts was not doing a good job,” Bowerman wrote in the affidavit.
Bowerman said he told Karle that he liked both men and that Karle persisted, saying that “Ritts should not be the DA.”
Bowerman said he told Karle that he worried about a “mass exodus” of prosecutors if Ritts lost and she “responded that no one else at the DA’s Office was any good and they had no other options because they wouldn’t get hired anywhere else.”
When Van Dellon resigned in December, all of the prosecutors but one had left.
“Contrary to Ms. Karle’s claims, every single one of us immediately found new jobs, with the overwhelming majority of us remaining as prosecutors,” Van Dellon wrote in his resignation letter.
Asked earlier about Bowerman’s allegations and Van Dellon’s letter, Karle declined to respond, and judicial guidelines likely prevent her from doing so. Bowerman also declined to discuss his affidavit.
In his affidavit, Bowerman noted that he was a member of the Farmington Town Board and served on the town and county GOP committees.
In his December resignation letter, Van Dellon said MacBride should not send cases to Karle because of the possible conflict of interest. Otherwise, convictions could be subject to appeal, he wrote.
Van Dellon also declined to comment.
In his court papers seeking recusal, Lembke argued that judicial conduct rules “impose a broad and unequivocal prohibition on political activity by sitting judges.”
“Under these circumstances, no reasonable person could conclude that Judge Karle’s impartiality is not subject to reasonable question,” Lembke wrote. “The appearance of partiality is not merely theoretical; it is compelling.”
What’s next?
The DA’s office has shown no inclination to keep cases from Karle, and other defense lawyers, aware of the allegations of favoritism, also have not requested that she recuse herself.
MacBride, in an email, said the case handled by Lembke is no longer an issue since it has been transferred. He did not comment further.
Several defense attorneys with whom I spoke were aware of the allegations from Bowerman but chose not to make an issue of it with cases before Karle. The lawyers declined to discuss the issue.
Karle is presiding over one of the county’s highest-profile trials in years, the multi-defendant case with the horrific torture and killing of Sam Nordquist, a 24-year-old transgender man.
As Madison Scott of the Democrat and Chronicle recently reported, Karle recently made significant decisions with the case, ruling that most of the seven defendants will be tried separately. The first trial is scheduled for Aug. 31. (The D&C story is here: First trial set in Sam Nordquist case; suspect called ‘ring leader’)
None of the attorneys in that case has asked for Karle to step aside, and she has conducted multiple pretrial hearings.
Should no other attorneys raise the issue, then there may be no need for arguments about Karle’s ability to preside over criminal cases. It’s unclear whether the Commission on Judicial Conduct has received a complaint.
If it has, the commission, a state agency that decides whether judges committed misconduct, has said nothing publicly about the issue. The commission declines to discuss investigations and does not release findings unless there is a determination of misconduct that results in a penalty.
Gary Craig is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. A retired Democrat and Chronicle reporter, he now writes on Substack.
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