Rochester City Judge Leticia Astacio.

New York's judicial ethics watchdog has recommended the removal of an embattled Rochester City Court judge who has faced a barrage of legal woes during her three years on the bench, including her most recent arrest for allegedly attempting to make an illegal firearms purchase.

Citing a 2016 conviction for driving while intoxicated, subsequent violations of her conditional sentence, her apparent lack of remorse and her conduct on the bench, the Commission on Judicial Conduct announced on Tuesday that Rochester City Judge Leticia Astacio should be taken off the bench.

Astacio, who was elected to a 10-year term in 2014, was convicted of DWI in August 2016; in the arrest for the DWI, a trooper encountered her in a badly damaged automobile on the side of the road, and the judge reacted to the trooper in a “profane and angry” manner, according to a news release from the commission.

After the conviction, Astacio twice violated the terms of her conditional sentence, the commission said. In November 2016, she pleaded guilty to attempting to start her car after testing positive for alcohol in her system on her ignition interlock device.

In May 2017, she failed to submit a court-ordered alcohol test and failed to appear in court because she had left the country for a long trip to Thailand.

The commission also said that Astacio engaged in misconduct on the bench for failing to recuse herself from the arraignment of a former client and making “discourteous, insensitive and undignified” comments in court, including telling a sheriff's deputy to use physical force to contain an unruly defendant and laughing during a sexual abuse case when a defense attorney said the victim in the case had “buyer's remorse.”

“Faith in the courts requires all judges to respect and comply with the law, to preside fairly and without even the appearance of bias, and to obey court orders when they themselves are litigants,” said Robert Tembeckjian, the conduct commission's administrator and counsel, in a news release. “Regrettably, Judge Astacio failed to uphold each of these principles. Her behavior has undermined trust in the administration of justice, which we hope in some measure to restore with this decision to remove her from office.”

Astacio can appeal the commission's finding to the state Court of Appeals, which on April 11 suspended Astacio with pay.

Astacio's lawyer, Robert Julian of the Law Offices of Robert F. Julian, said that he and his client are reviewing the commission's determination to decide their next steps, but declined to comment further.

“Our case is with the Court of Appeals, not the court of public opinion,” Julian said.

In a statement issued on Thursday, state Supreme Court Justice Craig Doran, the administrative judge for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, which includes Rochester, said that, for the last two years, “one matter has overwhelmingly dominated the public's attention” — apparently referring to Astacio — while hundreds of judges in his jurisdiction have gone about “quietly and diligently upholding the law.”

“This has been an unfortunate distraction from the critically important work done, on a regular basis, by the highly competent and caring judges and court staff serving the people of this community,” Doran said.

Tembeckjian discussed the commission's findings in Astacio's case in a news conference and also used the appearance to address public concern about the length of time that the judge has been allowed to stay in office and the limitations placed on his office to adjudicate and publicly discuss disciplinary matters.

Specifically, he said the commission is hindered in its work by dealing with a rising tide of complaints against judges with an ever-dwindling staff: When the commission was launched in 1978, he said, it had more than 60 staff members dealing with about 700 complaints each year.

Now, Tembeckjian said, there are fewer than 40 staffers handling more than 2,000 complaints each year.

“All New Yorkers should be concerned when their ethics entities are underfunded,” Tembeckjian said.