Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Charged With Obstruction in Manhattan Federal Court
Prosecutors alleged in an unsealed criminal complaint that Ash tried to cover up financial wrongdoing by Kam Wong, the former president and CEO of Municipal Credit Union. According to the complaint, Ash later wiped text messages from her phone and lied to investigators looking into Wong's conduct.
October 11, 2019 at 02:51 PM
3 minute read
The New York Court of Appeals voted Friday to suspend Sylvia Ash, the presiding judge of the Kings County Supreme Court, Commercial Division, just hours after she was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice for trying to interfere with a federal investigation into the state-chartered credit union whose board she used to chair.
Ash was released Friday on $500,000 bond ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Nov. 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Under the terms of her bail package, Ash's travel would be restricted to Manhattan and Brooklyn, and she would have to submit to location monitoring.
Prosecutors alleged in an unsealed criminal complaint that Ash tried to cover up financial wrongdoing by Kam Wong, the former president and CEO of Municipal Credit Union. According to the complaint, Ash later wiped text messages from her phone and lied to investigators looking into Wong's conduct.
Wong pleaded guilty last year to embezzling millions of dollars from MCU, a nonprofit financial institution based in Manhattan.
"The charges announced today reflect the latest in our ongoing work to uncover criminal conduct at the highest levels of MCU, a multibillion-dollar, federally insured credit union," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement.
After the charges were announced, Justice Lawrence K. Marks, chief administrative judge of the New York State court system, directed that all cases pending before Ash be reassigned, and ordered the judge to turn over all court records, computers and security passes in her possession. No new matters would be signed to Ash until further notice, he said in an administrative order.
Ash, 62, has served as a New York state judge since 2006. She was appointed to the Kings County Supreme Court in 2011 and became presiding judge of the court's commercial division in January 2016.
The complaint alleged that during her time on MCU's board, Ash received "tens of thousands" of dollars in reimbursements and other benefits under Wong's leadership, including airfare, hotels, entertainment and payment for her phone and cable bills, as well as other expenses.
Even after her resignation in August 2016, prosecutors said Ash continued to receive Apple devices and other perks from Wong.
Her attorney, Roger Archibald, had asked for no conditions to her release, but Wang sided with the government's request, citing the severity of the charges and allegations that Ash had lied to investigators.
Archibald said after the hearing that his client would ultimately be exonerated.
"The person who's guilty here is actually in prison right now. That's Kam Wong," Archibald said.
Meanwhile, Joseph Guagliardo, a former New York City Police Department Officer and former member of MCU's supervisory committee, was also arrested Thursday and charged separately with embezzlement, fraud and controlled substance offenses related to his role with MCU.
His attorney, John Arlia, did not return a call seeking comment on the charges.
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