The state’s highest court suspended the law license of a former York County Probate Judge for two years and fined him $5,000 for five violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct.

Robert M.A. Nadeau was sanctioned for his actions in 2012, when he told probate court staff not to appoint certain attorneys to litigants who qualified for indigent legal service, ordered a lawyer to destroy an email deemed a public document, and ordered the removal of a lawyer from three cases to which she had been assigned.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court determined Nadeau was “substantially motivated by ill will.”

The court also determined Nadeau “went too far” when he told litigants who complained about scheduling to contact the County Commissioners and urge them to increase funding for the court and that he violated the rules when he asked for campaign donations on his firm’s webpage.

“Nadeau violated [the rules] because he was using the power and prestige of his judicial office to advance his own private interests,” the court decided.

This is the third sanction for Nadeau, 62, who lost his bid for re-election in a three-way race last year. He has gone before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court a total of four times.

“His actions were often carried out in an intemperate and vindictive fashion against former colleagues of his law practice and their associates,” the 34-page decision issued Tuesday states. “Attorneys’ reputations were harmed, and litigants before him were pressured to support his efforts to increase court resources and his compensation. Judge Nadeau has not fully acknowledged the intemperate nature of his decisions.”

The Committee on Judicial Responsibility and Disability recommended a $10,000 fine and barring Nadeau from ever sitting on the bench again, a sanction that would have resulted in the harshest the Maine Supreme Judicial Court could hand down short of disbarment. Attempts to reach Nadeau for comment were not successful.

[MORE: Ex-probate judge says ‘enough already’ to proposed sanction]

The panel determined it wasn’t a code violation when Nadeau in April 2015, changed the entire probate court schedule without consulting staff just hours after the commissioners turned down his request for more court days and a raise.

The two year suspension begins Aug. 1.

Nadeau first was suspended from the bench in 2007 for a week without pay for lying about his opponent in his 2004 re-election bid. He was suspended for 30 days without pay last year for statements he made in a 2013 letter to the attorney representing his former girlfriend in a protection from harassment matter.

The Biddeford lawyer was first elected to be the York County probate judge in 1996 and served a total of 16 years on the bench.

All judges except those who serve in the probate courts are appointed by the governor and subject to confirmation by the state Senate.