Justice Victoria Chaney

A California appeals court judge testified on Wednesday in a rare disciplinary proceeding that a colleague on the bench, Jeffrey Johnson, suggested they have a sexual affair and repeatedly grabbed her breasts while hugging her.

“I felt that he wanted sex,” Second District Court of Appeal Justice Victoria Chaney, told Emma Bradford, an examiner with the Commission on Judicial Performance at California State Bar Court in downtown Los Angeles, when recounting an incident at a hotel in Reno, Nevada, with Johnson. “I just did not want to confront him. I was, and am, afraid of him.”

Weeks later, while in her chambers discussing a case, he suggested they have an affair, she said.

“We talked about the case,” she said. “As that part was ending, I was going to get out and he said he’s been thinking about it and said, ‘We should have an affair, we’re perfect together.’”

Bradford asked her if that made her uncomfortable.

“Oh, I was more than uncomfortable,” she said.

She continued: “I remember thinking something along the lines, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do now? How do I get out of this?’”

He also frequently hugged her in an inappropriate manner, Chaney recounted.

After one particular difficult hearing, Chaney said she ran into Johnson in the hall.

“He said, when my back was up against the wall, that he wanted to kiss and squeeze my titties to make me feel better,” Chaney said, closing her eyes.

Johnson’s lawyer, Reg Vitek, a shareholder at San Diego’s Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek attempted to poke holes in Chaney’s testimony by asking her about other details she had forgotten, such as which hotel she stayed at in Reno. He also asked repeatedly why she never told Johnson to stop his behavior or why she didn’t report him.

“Did you ever say, ‘Jeffrey, please don’t do that?’” he asked.

“I simply pulled away as fast as I could,” Chaney replied.

“Did you notify anybody who was in a position to change his behavior?” Vitek asked.

“No,” Chaney said.

Chaney, 73, in a black dress with white pearl jewelry, spoke softly but, on occasion, closed her eyes to recount certain events. Johnson mostly looked down during her testimony but, at times, looked up at her.

The hearing, expected to last a month, kicked off Monday with opening statements. The commission is investigating allegations that Johnson, an associate justice appointed to the Second Appellate District a decade ago, sexually harassed more than two dozen women he knew professionally during the past 18 years. In particular, he allegedly groped women, touched their bare arms or inappropriately hugged them. He faces 10 counts of misconduct, including sexual harassment, misconduct and drunken behavior unbecoming of a judge. Depending on the findings, the commission could remove him from the bench.

Johnson has acknowledged some of his behavior was inappropriate but denied the most serious allegations. His attorney, Paul Meyer, a solo practitioner in Costa Mesa, California, has called the accusations part of a smear campaign.

The hearing is taking place before three special masters: Justice Judith Haller of the Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, Imperial County Superior Court Judge William Lehman and San Diego County Superior Court Judge Louis Hanoian.

Chaney, who has been on the Second Appellate District since 2009, said the alleged sexual harassment began soon after she called to congratulate Johnson on his appointment.

“He said, ‘I didn’t know you were so beautiful.’”

At a conference in Reno, Johnson invited himself into her hotel room. When asked about her reaction, Chaney said, “I was shaken.”

Chaney became most animated when discussing Johnson’s alleged anger.

After oral arguments once, she said, he pointed his finger at her and yelled for interrupting him.

“I always had known he had some anger there, but wow, I didn’t expect that,” Chaney said. “He just came at me, like a whirlwind of anger.”

Johnson frequently hugged her, Chaney said, often grabbing her breasts at the same time. Sometimes, the hugs were at work functions around other people, like at a Christmas party in 2013.

“The first hug I ever got from him was just a normal hug,” she said. “But, after that, the hugs were qualitatively different. He would press his body against mine, hips against hips, his chest against my breasts, at least one arm around me, and when I came away from the hug, I could always feel the imprint of the hands on one of my breasts.”

It was after one of those incidences that she ran into attorney Eric George at a bar function.

“He said to me, ‘I can see something is wrong. What’s going on? What’s wrong?’” Chaney relayed. “So, I told him what happened.”

Chaney retained George, of Browne George Ross, last year, to represent her in sexual harassment allegations against Johnson. At the start of Wednesday’s hearing, the special masters, at the request of Johnson’s lawyers, told George that he needed to remain outside the courtroom since he could also end up testifying as a witness.

Chaney said Johnson grabbing her breasts was “no accident” and often was accompanied with comments like “mmm, you feel good.”

“I got an arm around me, sometimes some massaging or rubbing the back, and the other hand either was back there or as it came back around he would grab a handful of breast,” she said, shaking her head.

In 2014, when Johnson was up for consideration for California Supreme Court, rumors circulated about his conduct around women, she said. She said plaintiffs’ attorney Tom Girardi, of Girardi Keese in Los Angeles, told her a woman had approached him to sue Johnson for sexual battery.

She said Johnson appeared concerned those rumors could threaten a high court appointment.

“After we were talking about some rumors that had been going around about him, about women and him, he said that a black man is very powerful and that people are afraid about the size of black man’s penis,” she said.

Bradford asked Chaney repeatedly why she did not report Johnson’s behavior earlier.

“I thought I was the only one,” she said. “Most of the time, I’m kind of a tough lady. I thought I could handle it, and did.”

She also said she did not want to reopen problems at the division, which had a history of personality conflicts.

But she was convinced to report Johnson after she began to hear complaints from other women. One of them was former California Highway Patrol Officer Tatiana Sauquillo, assigned to drive Johnson to work functions. She alleged that Johnson told her he wanted to “fuck her from behind,” she said.

Vitek, in his cross examination, questioned her claims. Chaney alleged that Johnson would look at her chest when her nipples were showing through her sweater.

“I don’t mean to be tasteless, but this is a subject matter that is difficult,” he said. “How do you know your nipples were showing?”

“How did I know? He drew my attention to it,” Chaney said. “He looked in the area between my neck and waist.”

She then proceeded to describe all the ways in which she tried to avoid such incidents, such as wearing padded bras or jackets instead of sweaters.

Vitek later showed emails in which Chaney invited or agreed to join Johnson to lunch or other events, despite the sexual allegations.

“You invited him to lunch after he invited you to have an affair?” he asked.

“It appears that way,” Chaney replied.

He also referenced friendly nicknames she used to refer to Johnson like “twin brother” and “conjoined twin” and showed letters she wrote supporting his appointment to the California Supreme Court.

Chaney responded: “Justice Johnson has different parts. Most of that is accurate. Occasionally, he has other issues with alcohol or sexual harassment, but generally he’s collegial.”

She paused. “He would have been a wonderful Supreme Court justice.”

Vitek also sought to portray George, Chaney’s lawyer, as having a vested interest in representing her in the sexual allegations because she wrote an appellate decision in a big case years ago that he won. The California Supreme Court reversed that decision, from which Johnson had dissented.

Meyer, in his opening statement on Monday, said Chaney fueled gossip about his client.

“Justice Chaney has a history of exaggerated, salacious gossip about Judge Johnson,” he said.

Johnson’s legal team also includes Thomas Warwick Jr. of San Diego’s Grimes & Warwick, and Willie Brown Jr., the former mayor of San Francisco.