HARRISBURG -- A Cambria County district judge will soon learn whether sleep deprivation is an acceptable excuse for acting like a foul-mouthed jerk.

Allan Berkhimer, the three-term district judge who last month was chastised for using vulgar and sexually explicit language toward underlings, told the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline yesterday that he suffers from sleep apnea. The sleeping disorder, while it went untreated two years ago, was one of several stressors that led to his crude behavior, he said.

He is now being treated for the disorder, he told the court.

Berkhimer, yesterday and in previous testimony, admitted to the behavior, but said the vulgarity was out of character.

"It was a very stressful period," he said, claiming his sister's death and the end of a long-term romantic relationship may have also contributed to his crudeness. "I'm ashamed of what occurred."

Yesterday's hearing arose out of last month's ruling from the disciplinary court, which said Berkhimer's behavior was "so persistent, so pervasive, so inescapable, so diminishing of his office, and so extreme that we conclude that disrepute was brought upon [the] office itself." To the women that worked for him, he often used the F-word, told stories involving sex, and sometimes showed explicit photos, received over the Internet.

At stake is the remainder of Berkhimer's judgeship, which runs through 2005. Berkhimer was aiming for a fourth consecutive term in Tuesday's primary election, but he lost the endorsement bid to Rick Varner, a police officer. So no matter what the disciplinary court decides, Berkhimer will soon be evicted.

The court could suspend Berkhimer, discharge him or issue a reprimand -- Berkhimer has received one of those before, in a previous case. Joseph A. Massa Jr., who prosecuted the case, favors the harshest punishment.

"His ongoing presence on the bench is an insult to the people he serves," said Massa, chief counsel for the state Judicial Conduct Board. The conduct board is the body that files complaints against judges, while the Court of Judicial Discipline is the body that conducts hearings, then decides a judge's fate.

Massa sounded incredulous when Berkhimer and his attorney, Robert Davis, introduced sleep apnea as a mitigating factor. "Are you telling this court [that] your behavior was caused by sleep apnea?" he asked.

Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes a person to stop breathing periodically throughout the night, either because of a blockage in the airways, or because the brain forgets to tell the body to breathe. Either way, the person briefly wakes up during each interruption, sometimes hundreds of times a night. As a result, sleep quality is poor, and the sufferer feels constantly tired during daylight hours.

Dr. Jonas Johnson, an ear, nose and throat doctor at UPMC, said sleep apnea, if it's severe, can produce some behavioral changes -- moodiness, poor judgment, reduced libido. But he wasn't sold on Berkhimer's theory that his sleep deprivation helped turn an otherwise gentlemanly judge into a persistently vulgar one.

"It's a bit of a stretch," Johnson said.

The American Sleep Apnea Association says on its Web site that "untreated, sleep apnea may be responsible for job impairment," but doesn't say anything about increased levels of profanity or insensitivity.

Berkhimer has been a district judge for 18 years.