Court allows Judge Leticia Astacio to keep pay

The Court of Appeals Tuesday affirmed the suspension of City Court Judge Leticia Astacio but allowed her to continue to be paid.

The Court of Appeals earlier suspended Astacio with pay, after she was arrested for allegedly trying to illegally purchase a shotgun. Astacio is on probation after her 2014 drunken driving conviction and post-conviction violations.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct in April decided to remove Astacio from her judgeship. That ruling prompted the Court of Appeals to revisit Astacio's suspension, and again leave her suspended with pay.

After that ruling, Astacio's attorney, Robert Julian, wrote to the Court of Appeals, asserting that she should continue to be paid. The letter challenged the commission decision, saying that other judges have done worse and received lesser punishment.

"Judge Astacio's conduct was not as extreme or severe as cases of other judges where this court has modified removal to censure," the letter said.

For those reasons, the letter argued, "it would be a further prejudice for her to be deprived of pay in the interim where other judges in a similar circumstance were paid."

Astacio has until May 24 to tell the Court of Appeals whether she will challenge the judicial conduct commission's removal decision.

The Court of Appeals typically leaves the pay intact in such cases – to do otherwise could convey a perception that it has decided the merits of the Commission on Judicial Conduct decision.

However, Astacio could face an uphill battle with an appeal of the commission decision. The commission vote to remove her was unanimous, and the commission decided the scope of her misconduct was ample.

The commission decided that Astacio not only drove drunk but that she then tried to use her judgeship to influence the decision to arrest her. As well, she drank after her conviction.

The event that prompted the Court of Appeals to originally suspend her — the alleged attempted purchase of a shotgun — was not even considered by the commission when it stripped her of her judgeship.

Should she return to the bench with a successful appeal of the commission decision, Astacio could then face a whole new commission investigation about that incident.

Astacio's pay this month swelled to $187,200 a year as part of a salary increase for city court judges across New York.

More: Judge Leticia Astacio's extraordinary rise contrasts her fall from grace

GCRAIG@Gannett.com

SLAHMAN@Gannett.com