Massachusetts Has a Good Old Fashioned Sex Scandal Involving a Judge and a Prosecutor

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I think I can honestly say that if there's one thing I bring to the Barstool Sports table it's … actually I'm not sure I bring anything. If I am being honest, I'll admit that anyone can do this job. You know that thought experiment about how if you put enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter, they'd eventually type all of Shakespeare's works?

It took me a week to train a bonobo to type lowest common denominator dreck about the Patriots with references to ancient history and Lord of the Rings. And I've taken the last four months off without anyone noticing. 

In fact, if I bring anything to this job, I can humbly say I have an expertise when it comes to the inner workings of the Massachusetts Trial Court that no one else in the company can match. Sure, plenty of my coworkers have been to court. Mostly as defendants. Maybe a few for jury duty. But no one else can bring the knowledge I do based on my 17 years of public service, and a few days of sort of paying attention mixed in there somewhere. Which is why I came in semi-handy during the Karen Read trial. I have some experience when it comes to sorting out that often confusing nonsense.

With Read's retrial now pushed all the way back to April, there hasn't been much chance for me to use my vast storehouse of MA Court System knowledge. Until now. Until the Trial Court gifted us with this little gem:

Source - A quaint Massachusetts town is embroiled in a sex scandal after a judge was accused of an affair with a much younger prosecutor by a mysterious 'Madam X.' 

Former New Bedford District Court judge Douglas Darnbrough, 56, resigned from his post after he was accused in poison pen letters of carrying a romantic relationship with 31-year-old Bristol County assistant district attorney Karlyn Butler. 

'They have been in an affair since the end of 2022,' said one letter by the anonymous writer, dubbed Madam X by New England radio personality Howie Carr.

'They would both go to the Carmines restaurant together on a weekly basis and then would go to a friend of hers office nearby and have sex.'

The mystery writer began sending the letters to various lawyers, officials and reporters in the fall of 2023.

'He would park his Honda Ridgeline in the lot and she would park her blue Mercedes SUV in the lot as well. Many times he would get there first and wait for her. Then they would either go inside to the building or to her friend's office to have sex.' 

The mystery writer claimed 'They meet pretty much every Tuesday after court for drinks and to hang out in an office upstairs.'

'Sometimes she hangs out in his chambers after court is closed,' one letter added.

As Howie Carr points out in his own article, it was kind of a dead giveaway when ADA Butler was scheduling hearings with the Honorable Judge Darnbrough and signing them with a smiley face:

Which, while it's probably not how John Quincy Adams filed his court papers when he was defending the Amistad slaves, might not mean anything. Unless, of course, you're one of the defendants who was convicted by Karlyn Butler and sentenced by Donald Danbrough. Then the suggestion they were banging gavels in her friend's office would mean a whole hell of a lot. If the prosecutor in your case was getting inside the judge's robe on the side? That little bit of info would be your whole world.

As Carr reports, once these letters started arriving in various places around New Bedford, the judge stopped coming to court. Then he was reassigned to one of my old places of employment, Plymouth District Court, where he lasted all of three days before resigning. Which is practically unheard of when the job involves no heavy lifting, tons of vacation time, a fat pension, and the one perk no other job has, which is a roomful of people standing up to honor you every time you walk in or out of the courtroom.  Meanwhile Butler is still on the job and presumably still handling a caseload of trials she has to prosecute. 

He cites one case where the alleged crime is horrific, so I don't want to get into it. But where Butler asked for a two-year sentence and a year probation, Danbrough gave the defendant 3 1/2 years in jail, plus 8 years probation, making her boss look like a hero to the voters. And probably making this one of the most easy convictions to overturn on appeal in the history of the Commonwealth. 

Leaving us with the speculation about who this anonymous Madam X might be:

Howie Carr Show - Is she a “woman scorned?” The DA’s office seems to know who “she” is. In a Jan. 29 filing, the DA mentions an “in-person confrontation” Madam X had with the 33-year-old female prosecutor.

 

She knows the make, model and color of both lovebirds’ cars. She knows the ins and outs of the love nest known as the courthouse. Cue the smiley face again as Madam X writes about the young female prosecutor.

 

“She put a smiley face on the continuance request. This is of significance because Judge Darnbrough was the only judge who allowed or denied the continuance requests. So she knew he would see the smiley face on the continuance request.”

 

At one point, the DA’s office said they couldn’t identify her because of “protection of confidentiality for witnesses to preserve future investigatory techniques.”

 

A few weeks later the whistleblower excuse was gone. Now, they said, it was “criminal harassment” and “the investigation” continues.

All this points to an inside job. Another court employee. Someone close enough to the action to know the comings and goings - and cummings - of both parties involved. But someone who couldn't be trusted to keep their mouth shut. Or, better yet, let it be known they're aware of the whole situation. So if they start taking a bunch of days off without putting in for the vacation or personal time, the Judge better OK it. That if all of a sudden a one hour lunch turns into a three-hour shopping spree, so be it. And if maybe a few envelopes of cash start showing up on their desk, maybe their memory of where they saw the Honda Ridgeline and the Mercedes SUV parked would start to get a little hazy. 

But I guess Don and Karlyn didn't get lucky when it came to getting caught. They got bagged by a crusader. A true believer. Someone with faith in the justice system. Or, more likely, just someone who was jealous no one was looking over their briefs, if you know what I mean. Either way, there's no honor among thieves any more. And this could very well be the end of two brilliant legal careers. As well as get convicted parties released from prison. I just hope that smiley face was worth it.