Court reprimands Judge Pando.

Dade County Judge Ana Maria Pando has been ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and be publicly reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court for campaign financing violations, including misrepresenting a $25,000 personal loan from her mother during her unsuccessful 1998 campaign.

In case no. SC04-1636, the court on May 12 approved the Judicial Qualifications Commission's sanctions for Pando's misconduct.

According to the court's order, Pando, from Coral Gables who was sworn in as a county judge January 26, 2001, and the JQC stipulated the following:

* She "knowingly or recklessly accepted a $25,000 loan from a family member (her mother) made for the purpose of influencing the results of an election in excess of the $500 limit on contributions proscribed by law. Further, she misrepresented the source of this loan in an attempt to avoid the $500 contribution limit."

* She certified the correctness of campaign loan reports when "she knew the reports were incorrect, false, or incomplete because they failed to disclose that her mother, Millie Bencomo, and her stepfather, Esteban Bencomo, and/or their respective businesses were a source of numerous loans in excess of the $500 limit."

* "She inaccurately reported the source of certain of her contributions in her campaign finance reports."

* During the course of her deposition by special counsel on July 2, 2003, "she made statements tending to mislead the JQC as to a purported loan that she received from Eastern National Bank."

"A review of the stipulation entered into by Judge Pando and the JQC, as well as the JQC's findings, demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that Judge Pando's conduct violated Chapter 106 of the Florida Statutes and canons 1, 2, and 7 of the Code of Judicial Conduct," the court said.

In a specially concurring opinion, Justice Fred Lewis wrote: "I continue to hold the view that if conduct is so egregious as to require enormous monetary fines, the judicial office itself has been soiled and damaged. If we continue down this path, in my view, we undermine trust and confidence in the judicial system."

Pando "certainly did not engage in the type of conduct condemned in Kinsey, 842 So. 2d 77 (Fla. 2003)," Justice Lewis wrote. "However, I continue to believe as I voiced in Kinsey: ... 'Selecting an enormous fine as discipline only sends the message that "anything goes" in judicial elections if a candidate has the ability to pay the monetary consequences....