Perhaps it's best for a judge under the microscope for allegedly abusing lawyers and witnesses not to express belligerence toward the investigative process. 

A Queens judge who is accused of doing just that has been placed under suspension by the New York Court of Appeals while it reviews a determination from the state's judicial watchdog that he be removed from the bench for allegedly mistreating persons in his courtroom and failing to cooperate with the investigation into his conduct.

Queens Civil Court Judge Terrence O'Connor, who is also accused of ignoring mandated procedures for issuing sua sponte awards in no-fault insurance cases, has filed to challenge the Commission on Judicial Conduct's determination for removal before the Court of Appeals.

Among its accusations, the commission said that O'Connor, who was elected to the bench in 2009 and whose term is set to expire at the end of the year, stormed out of proceedings before the commission regarding complaints about his allegedly discourteous treatment of attorneys in the commercial landlord-tenant part over which he presided, and could be heard calling the proceedings a “fucking clown show.”  

According to the commission's determination, it was investigating O'Connor's allegedly “belligerent, rude and condescending” behavior in his courtroom, which included chastising attorneys in two different cases—Daniel Pomerantz of Cohen Hurkin Ehrenfeld Pomerantz & Tenenbaum and Pamela Smith of Stern & Stern—for using the word “OK” during bench trials.

“Stop telling [the witness] his answers are OK,” O'Connor said to Smith during a 2015 bench trial, according to the commission's determination.

The judge said in both cases that the attorneys were using the word as a tactic to lead a witness during examination, issuing rulings to strike the witnesses' testimony and dismiss the petitions that Pomerantz and Smith, who represented landlords, filed on their clients' behalf.

In another exchange in March 2015, the commission alleged, O'Connor upbraided Boris Lepikh, who at that point had been practicing law for about a year, for continuing to wear his coat in the courtroom and, after denying Lepikh's motion in his case and ordering him to trial immediately, for using his cellphone to text his employer.

“Is there some course in law school now, how to be discourteous and how to be rude? Because if there is, you must have gotten an A in it,” O'Connor said to Lepikh, according to the commission's determination.

“Quick to chastise lawyers for perceived discourtesy, sarcasm and unprofessional behavior, respondent himself engaged in such conduct, subjecting lawyers to harsh personal criticisms and insults in front of their clients, peers and others in the courtroom,” the commission said.  

Additionally, the commission said that O'Connor issued sua sponte awards of counsel fees upon granting defendants' motions for summary judgment or dismissal in nine different no-fault insurance cases.

The Court of Appeals suspended O'Connor with pay; his annual salary is $193,500.

O'Connor appeared pro se before the commission and has hired Jonathan Edelstein of Edelstein & Grossman to represent him in his challenge to the commission's determination. Edelstein declined to comment for this story.

The high court is expected to take up the challenge this fall, according to spokespersons for the commission and the court.

O'Connor has run afoul of the judicial conduct commission in the past. In 2013, he was censured for continuing to serve as a fiduciary without approval after becoming a full-time judge and for failing to disclose that his residence was being targeted for foreclosure.