HARRISBURG — Lawyers who are prosecuting a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice on ethics charges argued in a filing Monday that they should be allowed to use e-mails that he was sent, even if they can’t prove he ever read them.

Judicial Conduct Board attorneys said the e-mails fit a pattern because their content is similar to salacious and objectionable e-mails that they know were opened by Justice Michael Eakin.

“A comparison of the content of the e-mails that Justice Eakin sent and the content of the e-mails that he received demonstrates that the humor contained in each is similar,” board attorneys wrote in response to a set of questions by the Court of Judicial Discipline.

“This similarity of content bespeaks the fact that Justice Eakin knowingly accepted such e-mails from the members of (a) golfing group and Attorney (Terry) McGowan and that he, in fact, enjoyed such attempts at humor as were contained in the e-mails,” the board wrote.

Eakin is currently suspended with pay while he awaits a March trial in Philadelphia on ethics charges that could result in his removal from the bench.

To prepare for trial, the court posed a number of questions, including whether Eakin fully disclosed the e-mails the board now has when the scandal first broke in 2014. At that time, he was cleared, but the more recent disclosure of Eakin’s e-mails by Attorney General Kathleen Kane led the board to launch a fresh investigation.

The board said Eakin did not provide a full set of e-mails that went through his private “John Smith” account at Yahoo.com.

“In essence, Justice Eakin’s position on his ‘John Smith’ e-mails in the 2014 investigation was that he did not retain e-mails and, as such, could not reconstruct his e-mail history in order to determine whether he sent or received any e-mails that were inappropriate or offensive and that he did not review or recollect the e-mails that were disseminated to the media,” the board said.

The filing disclosed that a lawyer appointed by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts filed a report in December that found no sexual harassment among members of Eakin’s staff. The board has said e-mail traffic between Eakin and a deputy attorney general, about a female employee of Eakin’s, was a “sexually suggestive thread/conversation.” The Judicial Conduct Board argued the report isn’t admissible.