[CTRL] Judge threatens girls with `hell'

[Carl Amedio]

Judge threatens girls with `hell'

November 2, 2000BY CHRIS FUSCO SUBURBAN REPORTER "If you lie, you will go to
hell," a Cook County judge warned two girls in his court before they
testified about their dead poodle.Judge James T. Ryan once kept a woman in
court until she soiled herself, and fined another woman for speeding to a
hospital to give birth. The former mayor of Arlington Heights says he has
since learned to control his temper.Now, he's in trouble with Diane
Tuzzolino, a Mount Prospect mother who says he scared her children, Karyn,
12, and Kara, 8."My older daughter went to testify," Tuzzolino said. "He told
her, `You realize if you lie, you will go to hell. You realize what I'm
saying, you will go to hell.' "The judge, she says, then made a similar
statement to Kara.Ryan isn't disputing that he mentioned the afterlife in his
Rolling Meadows courtroom. But he says he treated Tuzzolino's children with
respect, speaking kindly to see if they were fit to testify in a
heartbreaking case."I might have said, `It was conceivable you could go to
hell,' though I don't remember exactly. Sometimes people misperceive what I'm
trying to do."The family was in court Friday to dispute a $312.70 bill from a
Schaumburg animal hospital, which cared for Tabitha, the family's 19-year-old
black poodle-Pomeranian mix.Ryan, 66, sided with the plaintiff, Golf Rose
Animal Hospital. But upsetting Tuzzolino just as much was Ryan's attitude
toward her kids.State law requires judges to make sure that children under 15
know the consequences of lying. If judges have doubts, Ryan said, they can
keep the children from testifying.Because small claims court doesn't have
court reporters, it's impossible to know exactly what Ryan said. In an
interview Wednesday, the judge said he "felt sorry for the kids" and was
trying to discourage Tuzzolino from making them testify.A signed receipt for
the veterinarian's work, Ryan said, made Tuzzolino responsible for the bill,
despite her argument that the dog already had died when she brought it to the
animal hospital last April. The girls testified that the dog's head had
drooped in the car on the way to the vet, Ryan said."I didn't want the
children to testify, but she was insistent," he said. "I questioned the
children, asking them if they knew the difference between right and wrong ...
and what would happen to them if they did not tell the truth."When she heard
the judge, "I was basically speechless," said Tuzzolino, 38. "Never in my
life have I heard a judge say that, even to an adult."Joseph J. Urso,
presiding judge at the Rolling Meadows courthouse, said judges typically
avoid such words."It has negative connotations," Urso said. "Most people
would not use those kinds of words. But that doesn't mean the way it was used
in this case was improper."Urso said he has received "virtually no
complaints" about Ryan this year. Urso reassigned Ryan from traffic to small
claims court in October 1999, after Ryan refused to let a Schaumburg woman
use the bathroom. Ryan previously fined a Streamwood woman $95 for speeding
to a hospital to give birth.Ryan, who plans to seek another term in 2002,
said he's learned to control his demeanor in court, an opinion seconded by
the chief judge."Judge Ryan has done a good job trying to curb many of the
problems that might have occurred," Urso said. "I'm surprised to hear about
this."

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