Court of Appeals for New York, Albany (Courtesy photo) Court of Appeals for New York, Albany. (Courtesy photo)

Two judges in New York will remain off the bench, but still be paid for their positions, after the New York Court of Appeals voted unanimously to approve their suspensions in separate decisions handed down Tuesday morning. 

Sylvia Ash, presiding judge of the Kings County Supreme Court, Commercial Division, and Paul Senzer, a village justice on Long Island, will stay off the bench, at least for the time being. 

Ash had already been suspended by the Court of Appeals in a decision earlier this month after she was charged by federal prosecutors for allegedly trying to cover up financial wrongdoing by the president of a credit union of which she sat on the board.

The Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, agreed to continue her suspension Tuesday, with pay. Ash earns $210,900 annually as a state supreme court justice.

She's served on the bench in New York state since 2006 and was appointed to the Kings County Supreme Court in 2011. She became presiding judge of the court's commercial division three years ago. 

Ash served on the board of Municipal Credit Union for nearly eight years until 2016. During that time, according to prosecutors, she received tens of thousands of dollars in reimbursements and other benefits from the credit union.

Kam Wong was president of MCU at the time and was suspected by federal investigators to have engaged in financial misconduct in his position. 

According to federal prosecutors, Ash tried to influence and impede the investigation into Wong by hiding and deleting relevant text messages and emails and making false or misleading statements to federal law enforcement officers.

Ash is charged with one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and two counts of obstruction of justice, which each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

She's currently out on a $500,000 bond ahead of a preliminary hearing scheduled in her case for next week. All of her cases have been reassigned, according to the Office of Court Administration.

Ash is represented by Roger Archibald, an attorney from Brooklyn.

Senzer, meanwhile, was suspended from the bench for the first time Tuesday. Senzer, an attorney, has served as a justice of the Northport Village Court in Suffolk County for more than two decades. 

His suspension from the bench Tuesday, like that of Ash, was approved unanimously by the Court of Appeals.

He was recommended to be removed permanently from office earlier this month by a state judicial watchdog after he was found to have used several derogatory terms to refer to individuals while working as an attorney. 

The state Commission on Judicial Conduct said in its decision two weeks ago that, while representing a couple seeking visitation with their grandchild, he called one of the attorneys involved in the case a "c**t on wheels," without censoring the term, and "eyelashes."

He was also accused of calling the couple's daughter, who was refusing visitation between them and their grandchild, a "bitch" and a "scumbag," among other terms.

Senzer, while advising the couple to drop their case, also called the referee in Family Court an "asshole." The referee wasn't named by the commission in its findings.

All of those derogatory terms were included in emails between Senzer and the couple he represented, who later forwarded the communications to a different attorney. That attorney sent them to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which concluded its probe earlier this month.

"It should be clear that a person who cavalierly uses gender-biased slurs does not belong on the bench," Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian said at the time.

Senzer wasn't automatically removed from the bench by the commission's decision, which was published on Oct. 17. He has 30 days to appeal the decision to the Court of Appeals, which could then choose to either affirm his removal from the bench or modify the sanction.

He's represented by David Besso and Michelle Aulivola from Long Tuminello in Suffolk County.

Besso, when reached by phone earlier this month, said Senzer plans to appeal the commission's decision, and was confident in his chances of having it reversed by the high court. According to him, the court has never removed a judge for private conversations with clients.

As of Tuesday, Senzer had not made such a motion to the Court of Appeals, according to filings with the high court. He earns $10,000 from his part-time position on the bench.

Neither suspension from the Court of Appeals is unusual. Judges accused of a crime are regularly suspended from the bench, as are those who plan to challenge a recommendation for their removal from the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

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