Former city council member makes tough judge

The brown Chihuahua mix perched at District Judge Gene Ricciardi's side barks for order when her owner's gavel fails to induce it.

Lucy, Ricciardi's shaggy sidekick in the leather-backed chair, always gets her way when defendants and prosecutors bicker too loudly over trash-strewn yards, broken fire escapes, rowdy neighbors or underage drinking. Sometimes she doubles as a soothing pet therapist for juveniles too choked with rage to tell the judge their side of a scuffle at school.

Ricciardi, 54, jumped from one branch of government to another in 2005, when the longtime president of Pittsburgh City Council was elected district judge in the South Side, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

He said he has become comfortable on the bench and is aware he has built a reputation of hammering neglectful landlords, repeat prostitutes and others with high fines and hefty bonds to make the point that the lives of law-abiding Pittsburghers must be protected.

"I just kind of hear through the grapevine that I have the reputation of being very stern, and possibly very tough. But that's only one aspect of my judgments," Ricciardi said.

"I think I've been able to make a difference, and the reason I've been able to make a difference is that I take quality of life issues very seriously," he said.

Examples abound.

In June, Ricciardi gave a Lawrenceville prostitute who repeatedly failed to appear for court a $50,000 straight bond -- more than seven times any bond she received in 21 previous cases.

In May, he slapped two Oakland landlords with a combined $460,000 in fines for dozens of fire and building code violations that prompted city officials to close the landlords' two McKee Place buildings. One landlord has appealed, claiming the fines are excessive.

In October, Ricciardi gave a North Side man a $100,000 bond for taunting a police dog at a gas station. The bond eventually was reduced to zero.

In November 2006, the judge imposed $1 million bonds on two Carnegie Mellon University students who tried to sneak into Heinz Field at night to film a music video. The FBI ultimately determined the act was "stupid" but not linked to terrorism, so the bond was erased.

"A $1 million bond gets you on TV and keeps the guy in jail. A $10,000 bond does the same, but you don't get a (news) story," said District Judge Richard G. King, a 15-year veteran of the bench.

"Sometimes he's had some issues about bonds being too high," King said.

For instance, civil rights advocates "took issue" with Ricciardi's decision to set bond at $100,000 for Kenneth King, a black man, who taunted the police dog.

Ricciardi said "gender, race, age, sexual orientation" don't influence how he sets bond, which he calls an art, not a science.

Tony Ceoffe, who heads neighborhood group Lawrenceville United, said Ricciardi's methods are effective.

"You can't allow wrist slaps," said Ceoffe, who touted Ricciardi's prostitute crackdown in a recent news release. "It's a crime, and does a $50,000 bond seem high• It caught my eye, that's for sure. But that's the message that Ricciardi wants to send: If you're going to be a prostitute, you might not want to do it in Lawrenceville."

Eileen Conroy, 53, a former city district judge who lives in Oakland and Harrisburg, lost to Ricciardi in the 2005 election. She said Ricciardi's large bonds are "grand-standing" tactics that create more work for Allegheny County Common Pleas judges who must hold bond reduction hearings.

"That's not what bail is about. It's not supposed to be punitive. The reason you set bail is to require the appearance of the defendant in court," she said.

Defense attorney Patrick Thomassey said he doesn't always agree with Ricciardi's decisions, but he admires the judge's creative approach to assigning community service as a penalty because it combines his perspectives as a councilman and judge.

Ricciardi once assigned a young man, who was cited for underage drinking, to accompany him to wash the Vietnam War memorial on 18th Street as a reminder that when the teen's parents were young, they likely had to deal with the sorrows of war and the draft.

In another case, he assigned two Oakland teens guilty of disorderly conduct to interview elderly South Side residents about their ethnic heritages and record them on a CD for posterity.

He routinely requires rap-addicted teens to write essays about the history of Pittsburgh jazz.

"I've seen them come and go," University of Pittsburgh police Chief Tim Delaney, who has been chief 7 1/2 years. "Gene's in step with our community, and he cares. What sets him apart• He listens and he's approachable."