An Alameda County Superior Court judge was arrested Thursday and charged with 13 felony counts related to embezzlement and theft from a frail elder.
Paul D. Seeman, 57, engaged in a “pattern of related felony conduct” involving more than $200,000 beginning in 1999, and lied about it to authorities, according to a complaint filed today in Alameda County Superior Court.
The alleged victim was Ann C. Nutting, who died two years ago at the age of 97. Nutting and Seeman were neighbors on Santa Barbara Road in the Berkeley Hills.
A newspaper article from 2009 announcing Seeman's appointment to the superior court bench gave his residence as Berkeley. Before becoming a judge, he had an office on Kittredge Street in downtown Berkeley. He graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law and was admitted to the State Bar in 1980.
Seeman was taken from the Alameda County district attorney's office on the second floor of the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse around 3 p.m. Thursday by two women, at least one of whom wore a badge on her belt. Seeman was wearing a gray suit, and his hands were handcuffed behind his back. His suit jacket was draped over the cuffs.
Seeman also stands accused of failing to report income from a loan and real estate investments to the Fair Political Practices Commission, which judges are required by law to do.
On Thursday evening, Seeman was in the Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in downtown Oakland, less than a block from the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse where he was assigned to Department 107 on the 4th floor. Bail has been set at $525,000.
Seeman was named to the bench by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009.
Seeman served as a court commissioner for the Alameda County Superior Court since 2004. He had previously served as a referee pro tem for the county’s Juvenile Court between 1991 and 2004. From 1990 to 1991, Seeman worked as a deputy county counsel for the Alameda County Counsel’s Office and before that he was in private practice.
