Judge of the Day

Dropping F-Bombs Gets A Judge Demoted

Being an asshole doesn't pay off.

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Well, well, well. It looks like you can’t walk into another judge’s courtroom and cause a scene that ends in flying f-bombs with no consequences. At least in New York.

When last we caught up with New York Judge Anthony Ferrara, he was bursting into Judge Felicia Mennin’s courtroom, and looking for a defense attorney attending an arraignment there. Judge Mennin asked Ferrara to take their disagreement to a side room. While the details of the argument that ensued were not known, voices were raised sufficiently loud that this was heard:

The awkward moment turned hostile when Ferrara was overheard telling his fellow jurist, “F— you.”

“You know what, Tony? F— you, too.”

Haha, It still makes me laugh. Jurists hate their coworkers too! Judges: they’re just like us!

Now, in the immortal words of Dee Thomas from What’s Happening!!:

Or, in the more precise words of Law.com, Ferrara, who’s retiring at the end of the year, has been relegated to only doing “chambers work” and has been “demoted to a city criminal court judge”:

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Justice Anthony Ferrara, who is slated to retire at year’s end, will be doing only “chambers work” for the remainder of his judicial career, and he has been demoted to a city criminal court judge position, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration.

“His conduct demonstrated that he lacked the discipline, judgment and temperament that is required of a trial judge,” Chalfen added in a statement.

By phone on Thursday, Chalfen also said of the decision to discipline Ferrara, “The point was to make a point—that this type of behavior is unacceptable.”

It just goes to show, being an asshole and disrespecting your colleagues (even your women colleagues) doesn’t pay off.

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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