Court Removes Supreme Court Judge in Westchester, Admonishes Brother
The state Court of Appeals this morning ruled to remove a state Supreme Court justice in Westchester County for alleged misconduct related to a campaign loan, but agreed to admonish the judge’s brother and not remove him as a Bronx judge.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct earlier this year voted to remove from office Supreme Court Judge Joseph Alessandro and his brother Bronx City Court Judge Francis Alessandro.
The state’s highest court ruled that Joseph Alessandro “engaged in misconduct warranting removal from office,” while Francis Alessandro’s sanction was reduced to an admonition.
The court said that Francis’ failure to fully disclose his assets and liabilities in his financial disclosure statements is “a serious matter.”
But “we are not convinced, however, that Francis deliberately omitted required information from his financial-disclosure statements.”
The ruling was the result of alleged misconduct relating to a $250,000 loan that Joseph Alessandro received from his campaign manager during his run for Westchester County Court in 2003.
Joseph Alessandro has been a Supreme Court judge since 2006; Francis Alessandro has been a Civil Court judge since 1990.
The Alessandros argued that the failure to disclose the campaign loan was inadvertent, and they sought to have their sanctions reduced to admonishment or censure.
Here’s the ruling:
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this was the direct result of the insistance of
the leader of the independence party that allesdandro
run first for county court then for supreme court
bye bye cavalowwwwwww
“Why the long face?”
“I’ve been admonished.”
How did Cavallo cause this?
cavalo insisted that allesandro be the republican nominee
for county court and then for supreme court only 2 years
later…had the republcians not nominated allesandro, no
other republican judicial candidate would have gotten
the ind cross endorsement..its what happens when you allow
cross endorsements in the first place…after this election
there should be an investigation into whether or not allowing cross endorsements leads to situations where too much power is given to to few people thereby compromising
the political process..the attorney general shouls convene
a grand jury and issue a report