A California appeals court judge denied allegations that he sexually harassed dozens of women over nearly two decades, calling some of the accounts outright lies and, at times, the product of long-held racial stereotypes of African American men.

Justice Jeffrey Johnson, under questioning from his own attorneys, denied the allegations that he propositioned Victoria Chaney, a fellow judge on the Second District Court of Appeal, countering that it was she, not he, who did the propositioning. He also denied that he ever used the term “big black dick,” calling those allegations “humiliating and insulting.”