An attorney for a Bronx state judge who was stripped of his caseload and his chambers last week for refusing a new assignment to a Domestic Violence Part said court system officials were hasty and heavy-handed in dealing with his client's case. Since December, Bronx Supreme Court Judge Armando Montano, 69, had presided over a felony Criminal Part and was recently reassigned to an Integrated Domestic Violence Part, where judges preside over matters affecting individual families in which domestic violence is an underlying issue, whether they be criminal, matrimonial or Family Court cases. But the new assignment did not sit well with the judge, who told Judge Robert Torres, the administrative judge for criminal matters in Bronx Supreme Court, in a letter dated July 18 and forwarded to the Law Journal that moving him to the IDV seems like a “disguised punishment.” In an interview, Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, said that Montano's new gig was a “routine administrative reassignment” and pushed back against the idea that moving from a felony Criminal Part to an IDV is a demotion. “This is not some misdemeanor part,” Chalfen said. “It's complex.” But Paul Gentile, who is representing Montano, said in an interview that the new assignment should be considered a demotion. While Montano is qualified to handle cases in the IDV, Bronx voters put the judge in office to take on criminal cases. Montano could handle a Traffic Court if so pressed, Gentile said, but his expertise and qualifications lie in the criminal realm. “It is, in fact, a demotion,” Gentile said. “It doesn't matter that OCA and anonymous judges say it's not, but it is.” In 1987, Gentile was appointed to serve as Bronx district attorney on an interim basis after Mario Merola died while in office and before Robert Johnson was elected to the office. Before Montano was first elected to the bench in 2013 as a Civil Court judge and was designated to preside over criminal matters. Prior to his election, he worked in private practice for about three decades, Gentile said, working in various practice areas, including criminal, civil and matrimonial matters. Last year, Montano was elected to the state Supreme Court in the Bronx. According to Montano's letter to Torres, Montano was asked to show up to the IDV part on July 16 for training. Montano declined to do so, according to the letter, and on the following day he met with Torres and Judge George Silver, the deputy chief administrative judge for the New York City courts. Silver told Montano that if he didn't show up at the IDV part on July 18, he would be locked out his chambers. As Montano notes in his letter, he didn't show up to the IDV. “Said assignment constitutes a disguised punishment,” Montano said in his letter. “It is no wonder that you refuse to put anything in writing you have no valid justification for your actions. It is very arrogant of you as your position is tantamount to essentially telling me, 'You're going to the IDV part because I say so.'” The same day, Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks issued an order stripping Montano of his chambers, staff and parking space and diverting all matters before Montano to other courts. In a letter to Marks, dated July 19, Gentile said Montano was being subjected to “illegal and harsh” treatment and said that, to “avoid litigation,” Marks should consider staying his order for 30 days so that the parties could work to a resolution. “He doesn't want to fight against OCA,” Gentile said in an interview. “He just wants the opportunity to do the work he's capable of doing.” Because he is nearing the age of 70, New York's mandatory retirement for state judges, Montano would need to be certified to continue serving on the bench past his 70th birthday. In his letter, Montano said that it was conveyed to him that certification “will never happen” if he doesn't take the new assignment in the IDV, but Chalfen said the judge's accusation is “patently false,” noting that the power to certify judge lies with an administrative board made up of the presiding justices of the four departments of the state's Appellate Division. “The administrative judges who spoke to him don't threaten people and didn't threaten him,” Chalfen said. While the OCA has the authority to cut off the flow of cases to Montano and to take away his judicial resources, it does not have the authority to remove him from the bench or cut off his $208,000 salary. The power to recommend that judges be removed from the bench lies with the Commission on Judicial Conduct; Chalfen declined to comment on whether or not the OCA has filed a complaint against Montano with the commission. In handling the Montano matter, OCA officials have cited the case of the late state Supreme Court Justice James Leff, who presided over criminal matters and, in 1980, put up a six-month fight when the OCA wanted to transfer him to civil cases. In 1982, the commission censured Leff, finding that, despite Leff's “outstanding reputation,” his refusal to take the new assignment was “tragic” and that he “disgraced himself and compromised the judiciary.”