Jennifer Forbes, candidate for Kitsap County Superior Court Judge, posted a comment on the Kitsap Sun’s Web site this afternoon regretting her decision to comment on stories without identifying herself.
She’d made several comments using the handle “1989payforward” where she accuses her opponent, Karen Klein, mainly of misrepresenting her hours working as a pro-tem judge. (That clash was well documented in a story by the North Kitsap Herald’s Richard Walker.)
“My blogs were all truthful, except that I did not re-identify myself as the blogger, which in retrospect, I should have,” Forbes said in her most recent comment, which she also emailed to me.
Another commenter had pointed out earlier that Forbes, the Kitsap County Bar Association’s president, had signed her name to the 1989payforward handle a few years back on an obituary.
Klein, the woman Forbes is running against, said she’d heard about the comments and took a look at them. She hadn’t seen them before. “I don’t like to read blog posts,” she said.
She wasn’t sure if they were Forbes or not, but felt that if true, “there are ethical issues.” She said she was trying to stay focused on her own campaign.
Here is Forbes’ most recent comment:
“Last week there was a column in the Sun by Rob Woutat regarding Karen Klein. I had nothing to do with that article. I did not ask for it, nor instigate it. However, I did post comments in a blog under the name “1989payforward,” a log-in blog name I had previously identified as me. (May 2011)
These blogs took issue with falsehoods continually repeated by Ms. Klein about her over-exaggerated hours as a judge pro-tem. These allegations were investigated and reported in the North Kitsap Herald, verifying that Ms. Klein had significantly less experience she was making the basis of her qualifications for judge.
My blogs were all truthful, except that I did not re-identify myself as the blogger, which in retrospect, I should have.
These comments followed after weeks of Ms. Klein handing out a flyer to voters with a material misstatement about her qualification that she had earlier admitted were not true. After she handed it out again this last week in a meeting in front of me, my frustration boiled over.
I regret letting my frustration get the best of me.
It has been a long campaign, and I have been subjected to slurs and falsehoods in this and other settings. But when it comes to watching falsehoods repeated week after week, with little press to check up on the true facts, I truly was just trying to stand up for myself and my record.”
What do you know… Jennifer Forbes shows her true colors once again. This time her excuse for doing something stupid is her “frustration.”
The Sun should retract their recommendation of Forbes… She is ill suited for the job of Judge and should be sanctioned for her deceitful conduct by the WA State Bar.
Just so you know who is criticizing you Ms. Forbes, I’m Bill Scheidler, founder of http://www.FixTheWSBA.org
“it seems she willing to send misinformation to voters without regard to the truth. I suppose hoping that they will be mislead and vote for her” -Jennifer Forbes
“I find it alarming she thinks it is okay to deceive voters and yet wants to be judge”- Forbes
These are comments Forbes left on blogs with the headlines, Truth and the words that get in the way and Transparency missing from the Sun…..
This woman is president of the Kitsap bar Asoc.
Read her words again,
“I find it alarming she thinks it is okay to deceive voters and yet wants to be judge”- Forbes
So Miss Forbes gets called out for her poor behavior and blames her opponent for her own misdeed!?!
Miss Klein just got my vote! Thanks for the demonstration of your lack of character, Miss Forbes. Clearly you are not suited for the responsibilies of a judge.
Jennifer Forbes’s actions are a complete and total outrage! This is a person that wants to be a Superior Court judge, and she behaves in a manner you might expect from a school girl running for student body president. For a candidate for any office, let alone a seat on the bench, to engage in this kind of behavior has to make one question her integrity and perhaps her emotional temperament to be a judge.
Does she really expect anyone to believe that she didn’t sign her name to comments made under 1989Payforward because she had signed her name once before two years ago? Did she really believe that everyone knew, as she wrote in the third person, that 1989Payforward was actually her, and that’s why she didn’t “re-identify” herself? What kind of a twisted reach is that to justify her actions? Is “re-identify” even a word?
I don’t believe for a second that it was her “frustration” that motivated her; I think it’s clear that it’s her blatant and ugly ambition to get herself elected judge that motivated her. Poor Ms. Forbes wanted to “stand up for herself and her record”, and she decided the best way to do that was anonymously! That tells us more about her than anything she could say.
Serving as a Superior Court Judge is a position of trust, and anyone who occupies that important position must have integrity that is beyond reproach. With her confession, Ms. Forbes has shown herself not to be qualified.
Just as concerning to me is that in my mind this is a much bigger and important story that should not be hidden on a blog. This story should be on the front page. I wonder if the Kitsap Sun’s support of Ms. Forbes played any role in the down playing of this story? Even Mr. Woutat’s column in which Ms. Forbes was outed for her behavior is not available by the normal menu to access columns, you have to do a search for it. Strange.
Forbes is listed as a Pro Tem for Bremerton Municipal court
Judge Docter is Presiding judge of the BMC
Judge Docter Indorses Forbes
Judge Docter pays a Ms. Hill as a Pro Tem , to wear his robe and sit at his bench with a sign that says judge. Ms Hill does not have an oath of office, and has never been appointed by judge Docter, and is not a member of the WA Bar Asoc as required by law.
Forbes is president of the Kitsap Bar Asoc.
If elected Judge she will serve under Presiding Judge Laurie.
The case of the deceptive robe wearing, unsworn pro Tem “Judge” was brought to Judge Lauries attention, yet Laurie went out of her way to defend and justify the fake judge, calling her merely “De Facto”
Nobody called out Judge Docter on his use of a deceiving “judge.”
Judge Docter never apologized and has not been held accountable.
I believe Judge Docter lacks integrity and I certainly would not vote for Forbes based on his endorsement.
I believe Forbes apology for her own deception is to little to late, she has shown her true character.
Forbes has deep connections and will probably win this election.
As the prez of the Kitsap lawyer club, will she be biased against Pro Se litigants?
Will she sweep the blatent corruption under the rug like judge Laurie?
Is your judge real or de facto ? Sworn or un sworn?
I have concluded the Kitsap judicial system is a disgraceful mess.
please vote wisely .
When you say “I have concluded the Kitsap judicial system is a disgraceful mess” anyone who can read and doesn’t live under a rock will know that Judge Haberly and her attorney husband, without permission, cut down their neighbors trees to improve their view! Judge Haberly is now, again, a defendant in judicial corruption.
Judge Hartman’s award of sanctions to a corrupt attorney of more than $130000, was reversed — completely, by the Court of Appeals as a “manifest abuse of discretion”…. so when you say that you have concluded… believe me, anyone who can read and doesn’t live under a rock would reach the same conclusion — Kitsap County’s judicial system is a disgrace!
Please help me, by joining in my effort to make judges and attorneys ‘accountable’ to citizens for the very crimes and abuses citizens suffer at the hands of these despicable people, notwithstanding their lofty role as judge!
Bill Scheidler, founder http://www.FixTheWSBA.org
See also Kitsap Superior Court case 12-2-02161-1 which names Judge Haberly defendant, Alan Miles (Kitsap deputy prosecutor) defendant, Kay S. Slonim (Chairperson of the WA State BoTA) defendant, and James Avery, Kitsap Assessor, defendant. All are alleged to have committed crimes and other ultra vires conduct individually and in their official capacity.
Do you think the Kitsap Sun will allow that story to be heard?
Afterall, jennifer forbers had to register with the kitsap sun before she began posting as someone else. They NEW of the character of Forbes long before they ran the story
Hmm, Mrs Forbes posts to a blog and immediately realizes that she did not include her real name and then declares it.
Writers on this thread would throw her in prison. Is there a political motive? Mr. Scheidler seems to say, from his historic post and his web site that every member of our legal system is corrupt. The other poster is Nobody. Hmm.
Well, whomever you are ss427, you fail to realize that the position of judge is a “nonpartisan” office. So your “political conspiracy theory” is very thin.
Furthermore, a judge, according to our WA State Supreme Court in STATE EX REL. CARROLL v. JUNKER 79 Wn.2d 12, 482 P.2d 775 (1971), states,
“(the) exercise of judicial discretion is a composite of, among other things, conclusions drawn from objective criteria; it means a ***sound judgment exercised with regard to what is right under the circumstances*** and without doing so arbitrarily or capriciously.”
Jennifer Forbes be her own admission is incapable of “sound judgment”.
Clearly, ff there is an ulterior motive by anyone posting on this story it is by those who WANT a Corrupt(able) person as a judge! I’m sure Alan Miles, who is a defendant for his unlawful conduct, would and is a supporter of Jennifer Forbes — he needs a judge who employs “unsound judgment.” Are you, ss427, Alan Miles?
And the very reason I would not vote for you, Ms. Forbes. We have a disgraceful mess at the courthouse and it needs cleaned up!
I know first hand what it is like to be screwed judicially! So do my children. Having them see the liars and false testimony only to have those lawyers made judges makes me very suspicious! Just our experience.
Ms. Trostad,
Thank YOU for your courage to post to this public site!
You have walked our our shoes and know, first hand, how the corruption, dishonesty, deceit by those in which we should have our trust goes uncheck, unpunished in Kitsap County.
Please contact me as I, with the help of others, have vowed to expose and prosecute, using all legal means to do so, these judicial and quasi judicial bad-actors and to return our Kitsap Judiciary back to the noble notion of “justice.”
Just so you know… one of the facts taught in my MBA class was for every ONE person who voices criticism there are at least 28 others who share your objections but remain quiet. Your voice reflects the feeling of 28 others.
Thanks for your courage!
Bill Scheidler founder http://www.fixthewsba.org
Can I get my ballot back and change my vote :/
The Kitsap Sun endorses Forbes.
The Kitsap Sun sat on this story over the weekend.
This story should have been front page three days ago.
Instead it was pushed to the back page over the weekend.
How many people have already cast their vote?
I’ll give the KS a little credit for finally running this in the top stories section.
But not much.
By the way, I am nobody. I am not someone else.
In answer to ss427; Forbes did not “immediately realize she did not include her real name then declares it”. Forbes only admitted it after she was caught. I wonder how she, if she becomes a judge, would view a defendant in the courtroom that only admits their wrongdoing after being caught. I’m sure she would be so very sympathetic!!!
As I mentioned in my earlier post on November 3rd, and as Nobody stated today, this matter deserved to be a front page story, and the powers the be at the Kitsap Sun need to explain to the readers why it wasn’t. On the face of it, it looks very suspicious.
This situation first came to light last Wednesday afternoon, it should have made the paper the next day or Friday at the latest. How the Kitsap Sun could ignore a story that concerned the honesty of a candidate for judge is simply an outrageous abuse of the public trust.
But wait a minute. Is it not evidence of judicial thought that one will ask to see some evidence? Which poster has indicated that the flaws in the life of Ms Klein as noted are not factually so? And which poster has indicated that Ms Forbes’ revelations of untruths are factually wrong?
It is one thing to have personal issues that do not attach to Ms Forbes but motivate one to oppose her, and to use rational thought to fault her with evidence.
Mr Scheidler, I hesitate to draw such a conclusion, but you share some ways of thinking with the estimable James Olsen.
How long does moderation take?
jennifer forbes
You are pathetic and insecure if that is your excuse for your blog.
Is it that you were too busy doing the blog that you have not answered my emails asking you “why”?
Only a person without a soul could do what you did to me.
Don’t you know that Gordon Thomas and Honeywell is the other law firm that represented Port Orchard?
You are the assistant to the Port Orchard City Attorney, Greg Jacoby.
Since you like blogging so much please answer me and tell me when you as the assistant to the Port Orchard City Attorney realized that Gordon Thomas and Honeywell was Port Orchard’s other law firm?you did what you did to me.
Please tell me “why”
revised
jennifer forbes
You are pathetic and insecure if that is your excuse for your blog.
Is it that you were too busy doing the blog that you have not answered my emails asking you “why”?
Only a person without a soul could do what you did to me.
Don’t you know that Gordon Thomas and Honeywell is the other law firm that represented Port Orchard?
You are the assistant to the Port Orchard City Attorney, Greg Jacoby.
Since you like blogging so much please answer me and tell me when you as the assistant to the Port Orchard City Attorney realized that Gordon Thomas and Honeywell was Port Orchard’s other law firm?you did what you did to me.
Please tell me “why” and how could you do what you did to me?
jennifer forbes
Please Google = Gingers strength rob mckenna
I am not just a name on a piece of paper.
I am a woman.
I am still paying the price for what you and others did to me.
Do not ever use a domestic violence charity event as a photo op again.
You, I and others know what you and others did to this domestic violence victim.
Thanks to nobody, and others (you know who you are) for the refreshing sound of sense.
BTW, I don’t use my real name; but I am not running for public office.