Members of the Panel:
I am here to support pay raises for judges, but only those judges who are in strict adherence to the rules and principles they are vowed to uphold.
Those judges who fail to uphold these rules and principles must not receive pay raises and must be punished for their misconduct.
Therefore, there cannot be pay raises until there exists an honest, effective agency that can determine which judges are doing their jobs properly and which are not.
At this time, no such agency exists.
The purpose of my testimony today is to prove that The Commission for Judicial Conduct is corrupt and dysfunctional and does not serve its function.
To illustrate this dysfunction I will present three examples of judges who have violated judicial rules and criminal laws, and whose misconduct the CJC has corruptly ignored.
The first example is NY Supreme Court Judge Herman Cahn, now retired. Judge Cahn broke judicial rules and criminal laws by withholding unsealed transcripts of a case from a party in that case. A complaint was made to the CJC, who declared simply that that they “found no evidence of wrongdoing”.
The absurdity of that statement is clear to anyone who examines the complaint, which I have submitted to the Committee here today.
The second judge whose misconduct was covered up by the CJC is Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman. A complaint against Lippman alleging judicial and criminal misconduct was officially submitted to the CJC weeks in advance of the Senate hearings for his Nomination.
This complaint was pending before the CJC during the nomination hearings but the CJC withheld it from the Senate Judiciary Committee so that it could not be considered by the Full Senate in its vote.
The third complaint is not from me but from a friend who could not be here today.
His complaint was made to the CJC and also to the FBI. I quote:
“On January 14, 2009, Judge [Joseph] Golia sent two …detectives from the Queens DA bureau to kidnap me, intimidate me and threaten that if I filed a complaint against [him], I would be in serious danger.
Despite these threats, I filed a complaint with the Ethics Committee of the OCA, alleging that Golia had made substantial misrepresentations on his Financial Disclosure Forms over seven years of reporting.
As a result of my allegations, the Ethics Committee sent Judge Golia…a demand for correction.
On April 9, 2010, I was informed by…the Ethics Committee…that Golia had amended his Financial Disclosure Forms as a result of my complaint…
Making misrepresentations on a Financial Disclosure form is a felony.
I believe that Golia made at least TWELVE… misrepresentations on his… Disclosure Statements,
I assume Golia does not want to go to jail, and he has already threatened me with retaliation if I brought his crimes to the attention of the authorities, which I have done.
I … believe that Golia will …try by any means to prevent me from pursuing this matter and testifying against him.
I believe that my life is in grave danger… having been threatened by a judge with such extraordinary influence over law enforcement and judiciary agencies….
Therefore, I am officially requesting a witness protection protocol [by the FBI] to ensure my personal safety until and while this matter is being prosecuted….
End quote.
That letter was written by Mr. Sunny Sheu, who could not be here today because three days after announcing to the OCA that Golia had lied on his amended financial disclosure form, Sunny was found lying in the street in a coma, and he died hours later.
The Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death as “blunt force trauma to the head with skull fractures and brain injuries” and that the manner of death was “undetermined”.
Under New York law, an undetermined death MUST be investigated, but over a year after his death, Sunny’s death has never been investigated and neither have his allegations of financial disclosure fraud by Golia. Nor have the complaints Sunny made about Golia to the CJC.
I invite your questions.
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