SPRINGFIELD — The former district court judge who lost his job over what he terms a consensual sexual affair has settled a lawsuit against him, seeking “to close this ugly chapter in my life and to focus on the future.”

Thomas H. Estes, who formerly presided in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown, said in a statement that he agreed to pay $10,000 to resolve a complaint brought against him four years ago by Tammy Cagle in U.S. District Court in Springfield.

Estes resigned his position as a district court judge after Cagle filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination in 2017. The relationship led the Supreme Judicial Court to suspend him indefinitely, prompting him to step down.

In various legal filings, Cagle claimed that she was removed from her position as a social worker with the drug court in Pittsfield because of her relationship with Estes.

In January, Cagle and her attorneys settled a case in Suffolk Superior Court. The agreement called for the Trial Court to pay $425,000.

That settlement influenced the outcome of the U.S. District Court case. By law, a plaintiff cannot collect twice, according to one of Cagle’s attorneys, meaning that to secure an additional judgment of comparable size, the outcome in the Springfield court would have had to be $850,000.

Leonard H. Kesten, one of Cagle’s attorneys, said the circumstances, including questions about Estes’ ability to pay an award, led him and co-counsel Erica L. Brody to recommend that Cagle settle.

“His lawyer kept telling me he had no money,” Kesten said of the former judge. “(An award) was never going to be able to be collected.”

Estes said in the statement that he has waited for years “to tell my side of the story and I finally can.”

“The relationship I had with Tammy Cagle was entirely consensual,” he said. As proof, he pointed to the fact that Cagle had sent text messages inviting him to her apartment “on multiple occasions,” including a visit after she had left her court job and moved from Massachusetts to Georgia.

“I had an affair, and I paid a heavy price for it,” he said. “However, I never sexually harassed Tammy Cagle and being falsely accused of such behavior at the height of the #metoo movement has taken a terrible toll.”

Kesten, Cagle’s attorney, disputes that it was a consensual affair.

“In the context of a power disparity, when someone controls your whole career, it’s hard to say no,” Kesten said, referring to the judge’s status within the court.

“Ms. Cagle was incredibly brave to take on Mr. Estes in the Trial Court. She’s been vindicated,” Kesten said, referring to the separate civil action that Cagle initially filed on her own against the state’s Trial Court, without counsel. “The Trial Court apologized to her and recognized what she went through,” he said.

Estes said in his statement that he wanted to present a defense in the U.S. District Court case.

“I was looking forward to trial and the opportunity to clear my name,” he said. But, facing the high legal expense of the trial, he said he opted to settle.

Nancy Frankel Pelletier, Estes’ lawyer, pointed to an earlier ruling in the U.S. District Court lawsuit that removed another defendant in the suit, the Behavioral Health Network, Cagle’s employer at the time.

She said that ruling, by Judge Katherine A. Robertson, showed that her client’s relationship with Cagle was not a factor in the social worker’s transfer from the drug court.

“Rather, the transfer was the result of Ms. Cagle’s inability to work with others as a member of a team,” Frankel Pelletier said. “Her efforts to create a false narrative demeans those whose lives and careers have truly been impacted by sexual harassment.”

When asked about that statement, Kesten said he believes that there was nothing false in the case his client brought forward.

“It’s an outrage. You have a judge who has a female employee performing sex on him in the courthouse, and somehow it’s OK?” he asked, in a phone interview from his office in Boston. “And it’s a consensual relationship and it’s her fault? I thought we’d moved beyond this.”

Estes said he is grateful for what he termed “the many, many people in the legal community” who “have stood by me and lament that I am no longer on the bench. Your kind words and acts over the past 4½ years have meant more than I can express.”

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