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 By Tracy Breton

Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Frank J. Williams, former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, is going to continue his work with the court as a volunteer retired jurist mediating civil cases that come up on appeal.

The court’s Web site lists Williams as a mediator now, but judiciary spokesman Craig Berke said Williams has not begun that job yet because he remains an associate justice on the court. All of the decisions he authored have now been published but he is still a member of the court, Berke said, because one of his colleagues is still writing a decision that Williams participated in.

Williams announced his retirement as chief justice in December 2008, but he continued as a member of the court in 2009.

Berke said that Williams, who has an annual pension of $138,306.28 — 75 percent of his former salary as chief justice — will receive no extra pay as a mediator. He will join 10 other mediators, 9 of whom are retired judges. One is a retired magistrate.

Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell in October announced that he would not ask his predecessor to perform any further judicial duties, saying: “It is clearly in the best interests of the judiciary that the former chief justice be relieved of judicial responsibilities at this time.”

The announcement came on the heels of a barrage of reports in The Providence Journal about the divorce case of Williams’ former driver, Deputy Sheriff Pamela DosReis, and her husband, Frank J. DosReis, a state corrections officer.

Williams is the godfather of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter and his presence in the family’s life was cited as a cause for the break-up in the marriage. Testimony emerged in the couple’s Family Court divorce hearings that Williams had keys to the DosReis’ house, that he regularly slept there in his own bedroom, that he bought the family gifts and paid the girl’s parochial school tuition. After hearing the testimony and receiving a report from a court-appointed guardian ad litem, Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. issued a restraining order barring Williams from visiting the child.

But Williams is hoping that visitation can resume, his lawyer, John A. Tarantino, said this week. “He cared a great deal for the relationship he had with that family, and it distressed him that there was a divorce. He had a very longstanding, good relationship with his godchild, and it has distressed him that he has not been able to continue it for the last six months or so,” Tarantino said.

Asked why Suttell has had a change of heart regarding Williams’ continued service for the Supreme Court, Berke said he disagreed that there had been any change. “Mediation is not a judicial function. Mediators do not have the power to impose or order anything. It’s to try to bring people together to resolve a dispute.”

Berke said that Williams founded the mediation program. Williams asked Suttell if he could become a mediator and the chief justice approved, Berke said.

Although only retired justices and magistrates may preside in the court’s mediation program, “I maintain that the retired chief justice is giving up his judicial duties,” Berke said.

The mediation program is directed by Williams’ former law clerk, Erika Leigh Kruse, who is the general counsel for the Supreme Court. It has been highly successful in resolving cases, leaving fewer for the sitting justices to hear. For each of the last five years, 62 to 78 percent of the cases that have gone to mediation have been settled or withdrawn.