A retired Alaska Superior Court judge now faces formal charges of lying to the state's judicial conduct commission after his phone number turned up in two separate sex-trafficking investigations, a revelation that came to light only after he had already talked his way out of an earlier complaint about his social-media ties to suspected sex workers.

Romano DiBenedetto, 57, who presided over cases in Nome from his 2017 appointment until his abrupt retirement on April 1, is charged with violating three sections of Alaska law governing judicial conduct and four canons of the Alaska Judicial Code of Conduct, according to a charging document filed last week by the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct.

His Anchorage-based lawyer, John Cashion, did not respond to a request for comment. DiBenedetto's court-system email account is no longer active.

A complaint, a cover story, and a closed file

The trail begins in 2023, when someone filed a complaint with the commission about DiBenedetto's use of Facebook, specifically, activity that "implied Facebook friendships with apparent female sex workers and was easily publicly viewable." Commission Chairperson Amy Mead wrote that when officials confronted DiBenedetto, he acted surprised and denied involvement.

He then agreed to clean up his online presence. Mead stated that DiBenedetto pledged to "take steps that would eliminate the problematic public posts that created the appearance of impropriety and would work with court staff to ensure that his personal Facebook page would conform with expected standards."

The commission accepted his word and shut the file.

But Mead later described DiBenedetto's account of events in far harsher terms. He had, she wrote, "misrepresented his knowledge of why the posts were on his Facebook page with the intent to affect the Commission's actions." In plainer language: the commission says he lied to make the problem go away, and it worked, at least for a while.

"Based on those false statements and misrepresentations, the Commission closed that complaint file."

That finding alone should trouble anyone who believes judges must be held to the highest standard of honesty. The very body charged with policing judicial ethics was, by its own admission, deceived into dropping the matter. The pattern is disturbingly familiar in cases of judicial misconduct that festers behind closed doors until outside facts force the issue.

Phone records surface in trafficking cases

The issue was forced open in February, when an analyst with the Alaska Department of Public Safety recognized DiBenedetto's name in connection with two separate, closed criminal investigations into sex trafficking, one from 2021 and another from 2023. The analyst flagged the connection to the commission.

Mead described what investigators found in careful but damning terms:

"As part of the electronic data collection in those investigations, the judge's phone number appeared once in each investigation. Each call was to a different victim of the sex trafficking operation and was brief, lasting about 20 seconds."

Two calls. Two different trafficking victims. Two different years. Each roughly twenty seconds long. The commission has not publicly stated what, if anything, was said during those calls. But the fact that DiBenedetto's number appeared in the records of two distinct trafficking probes, after he had already been caught with suspicious social-media connections to apparent sex workers, paints a deeply troubling picture.

The commission itself acknowledged it had "recently become aware of new, previously unreported, facts that affect its recommendation for discipline in this matter." That understated language belies the gravity of what those facts suggest about a sitting judge's conduct.

A quiet exit and a delayed reckoning

DiBenedetto did not wait for the new charges. On March 27, he submitted a letter to Governor Mike Dunleavy announcing his retirement effective April 1. Radio station KNOM posted the letter online. In it, DiBenedetto offered a single, bland sentence: "It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve the citizens of Alaska."

No explanation. No acknowledgment of the allegations. No apology.

His retirement came while he was already facing a public reprimand for a separate set of findings he had agreed to, including showing up late to an after-hours court hearing in January 2024 because he had been watching an unspecified "televised sporting event." The commission also found that he had canceled, moved, or delayed hearings on short notice and mocked witnesses. DiBenedetto did not contest those findings.

When judges elsewhere have faced serious allegations of exploiting their positions, the consequences have sometimes taken years to materialize. A Detroit judge recently saw federal charges expand in a case involving alleged theft from incapacitated victims, a reminder that the bench can shield misconduct for far too long.

Earlier this month, the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct asked the Alaska Supreme Court to hold off on imposing the previously agreed-upon reprimand. The reason is plain enough: the new charges dwarf the old ones. DiBenedetto has until May 18 to respond.

What the record shows, and what it doesn't

DiBenedetto was appointed to the bench in 2017 and retained by voters in 2020. His official biography on the Alaska Court System website listed his personal interests as fitness, running, hiking, and "talking sports of all sort." Nothing in that tidy profile hinted at what would follow.

Several questions remain unanswered. The specific Alaska statutes and judicial canons cited in the charging document have not been publicly detailed beyond their count. The nature of DiBenedetto's "interactions" with trafficking victims, beyond two brief phone calls, is not spelled out. Whether any criminal referral has been made is unclear. And the commission has not explained how a Department of Public Safety analyst happened to connect the dots that the commission itself missed for years.

That last gap matters. The commission had DiBenedetto's name in front of it in 2023. It had the Facebook evidence. It had his denial. It closed the file. Only an outside analyst's recognition of his name in trafficking records reopened the matter. The system did not catch itself. Someone outside the judicial-oversight apparatus had to do it.

Concerns about whether judicial oversight bodies act with sufficient independence and rigor are hardly limited to Alaska. A Utah Supreme Court justice recently faced an independent probe over alleged conflicts, and questions about misconduct inquiries that only surface near retirement have dogged courts across the country.

Accountability delayed

DiBenedetto is now a private citizen. He retired four days after writing his letter to the governor. The commission's proceedings continue, but the most severe sanction available against a sitting judge, removal, is off the table. Whatever discipline emerges will land on a man who has already walked away from the bench on his own terms.

That sequence should bother every Alaskan who appeared before DiBenedetto's court, every litigant who trusted his judgment, and every voter who retained him in 2020 without knowing what the commission would later allege. The people of Nome deserved a judge whose conduct could withstand scrutiny. By the commission's own account, they got one who lied his way past it.

When a judge's phone number shows up in sex-trafficking case files and the oversight system's first instinct is to take his word for it, the problem isn't just one bad judge. It's a system that lets the robe do the vouching.