SYLVIA G. ASH AND SHELLY JOSEPH
Sylvia G. Ash is a judge in the Kings County Supreme Court of the 2nd Judicial District of New York. The district is located in Brooklyn and is one of the five judicial districts which make up New York City.
The Kings County Supreme Court is divided into two branches, the Criminal Term and the Civil Term. The Honorable Judge Ash presides in the Civil Term Division.
She was elected to this position on November 2, 2010 (effective January 1, 2011) for a fourteen-year term ending on December 31, 2024. In January 2016 Ash was appointed to be the presiding judge in the King’s County Supreme Court’s Commercial Division which handles civil matters involving sums of money greater than $150,000.
Ash received her B.A. in 1978 from State University of New York at Stony Brook and her J.D. from the Howard University School of Law in 1984. She was admitted to the Bar in 1985, worked as a judicial law clerk for a New Jersey Superior Court, Chancery Division and then joined the District Council 37 Law Department where she was a supervising attorney for 20 years prior to becoming a judge. She was elected to the Kings County Civil Court in 2005, took office in 2006 and served there until she joined the Supreme Court in 2011.
Today Justice Sylvia G. Ash is in a world of hurt.
On October 11, 2019 Geoffrey S. Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that Ash, presiding Supreme Court judge and former chair of the board of directors of Municipal Credit Union (“MCU”) was charged in Manhattan federal court with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice, arising from a scheme to seek to influence and impede an ongoing federal investigation into fraud and corruption at MCU, a non-profit, multibillion-dollar financial institution.
MCU is the oldest credit union in New York State and one of the oldest and largest in the country. It provides banking services to more than 500,000 members, with in excess of $2.9 billion in member accounts each of which is federally insured for at least $250,000 by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund administered by the National Credit Union Administration (“NCUA”). Membership in MCU is generally available to employees of New York City and its agencies, employees of the federal and New York State governments who work in New York City, and employees of hospitals, nursing homes and similar facilities located in New York State.
When the former chief executive of MCU, Kam Wong, pleaded guilty last year to stealing nearly $10 million from the financial institution, federal prosecutors maintained that he had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide his long-running embezzlement and misappropriation scam. Mr. Wong “tried to cover up what he had done by making false statements to federal investigators and creating false and misleading documents,” they asserted. (Wong was sentenced to 66 months in prison).
And apparently he had help.
Enter Ash.
After she was arrested at LaGuardia Airport upon her return from Miami, Ash was charged in a criminal complaint with trying to thwart the federal inquiry into Wong’s theft by various means. Prosecutors allege that she signed a false memo purporting to justify millions of dollars in improper payments that Wong received from the credit union; that she concealed and deleted text messages and emails and wiped clean her credit union-issued iPhone; and that she made false and misleading statements to federal investigators.
According to Berman the judge “took repeated steps to obstruct a federal investigation into significant financial misconduct.”
Justice Ash, 62, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and two counts of obstruction of justice. The terms of her release were set at a $500,000 personal recognizance bond as well as the mandate that she wear a GPS location-monitoring device.
A motive for her behavior was outlined by prosecutors: From 2012 to 2016 while Wong was chief executive and Ash chaired the board, she “received annually tens of thousands of dollars in reimbursements and other benefits” from the credit union, “including airfare, hotels, food and entertainment expenses for her and a guest to attend conferences domestically and abroad, as well as payment for phone and cable bills, and electronic devices.”
Following the announcement of the charges Ash was immediately stripped of her judicial duties pending the resolution of the case and suspended with pay from her $210,000-per-year position by the state Court of Appeals.
Ironically, among her other duties Ash served on New York State’s Commission on Judicial Conduct whose mission is “to enforce high standards of conduct for judges, who must be free to act independently, on the merits and in good faith, but also must be held accountable should they commit misconduct.”
Wow!
Justice Ash pleaded not guilty on Monday November 4. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan set a trial date for May 2020.
District Court Judge Shelley M. Richmond Joseph was indicted April 25 by the Justice Department for allegedly preventing federal immigration agents last year from arresting an undocumented immigrant after a state court hearing by allowing him to exit the courthouse through a back door.
The indictment marked an unusual escalation in the federal government’s strict immigration enforcement policy and its battles with states and local governments sheltering migrants. The indictment accuses Joseph and a court officer, Wesley MacGregor, of allowing Jose Medina-Perez, an undocumented Dominican national to leave the courthouse hidden from a federal agent’s sight and lying about it later.
Joseph, a judge in Newton, MA near Boston, is charged with one count of obstruction of justice and two counts of aiding and abetting to obstruct justice. MacGregor, now retired, faces the same charges in addition to a perjury count. Both pleaded not guilty to all charges in Boston federal court before a federal magistrate.
The obstruction charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison. Joseph and MacGregor were released without having to post bond but both were ordered to surrender their passports and are restricted from traveling outside the U.S. MacGregor, licensed to carry, must surrender his firearm.
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling, in a highly unusual and controversial action, charged the judge with obstruction of justice triggering a spirited debate over whether and how states can refrain from executing the Trump immigration policy. (In fact, for a federal prosecutor to indict a state judge is so rare that citing a Massachusetts precedent requires a trip in the way-back-machine to 1787 when Judge William Whiting was removed from the bench for defending a farmer’s rebellion against state tax collectors).
Joseph, now a defendant finds herself at the fulcrum of the Massachusetts sanctuary city movement, one in which the courts have passed a number of legal rulings constraining Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining immigrants in courthouses. Joseph’s supporters sternly admonish that if her case moves forward paving the way for the prosecution of other judges, it will undermine them and severely threaten their independence, as the nation — deeply divided — struggles with the immigration issue. For her part, Judge Joseph has refused a plea deal that would have spared her the angst of prosecution if she copped to violating federal law, indicating that she is preparing to go to trial in a case that likely will wend its way through the system at a snail’s pace. The fallout is toxic.
On one hand, the evidence against Joseph is compelling: Before allowing Medina-Perez to be escorted from her courtroom she could be heard on an audio tape instructing the court clerk to turn off the recorder in an apparent deliberate effort to conceal what was being said. On the other hand legal powerhouses in the community and elsewhere rushing to her defense contend that Lelling, in an unparalleled fashion has crossed the line by indicting a state judge, relying on federal clout to beat state officials into submission and compliance.
Lelling’s retort? Although he declined to comment on the record, it is clear that he believes the law is the law. Period. Personal feelings can have no bearing.
Both Joseph and MacGregor have pleaded not guilty.
Sylvia G. Ash.
Shelley M.R. Joseph.
Judges.
Politics.
The Law.
People.
Human beings.
Of the two — Ash and Joseph — whom would you rather support and defend?
