Ash in the can: The many injustices of Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Sylvia Ash
Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Sylvia Ash has now added convicted criminal to her credentials, having been unanimously found guilty by a Manhattan federal jury Monday of obstruction of justice, which carries up to 20 years in prison. Guilty as well as of conspiracy to obstruct justice (five years) and making false statements (five years), Ash remains a judge on the state’s highest trial court. And she’ll shamelessly stay a judge and keep her $210,900 salary until New York’s top court, the Court of Appeals, bounces her.
But the high court must wait until all of Ash’s appeals have finished, which could take years, so the state Commission on Judicial Conduct must speedily remove Ash. It should be easy for them since Ash is, embarrassingly, a former member of the panel and the agency’s administrator and counsel, Bob Tembeckjian, was a U.S. Department of Justice prosecution witness against Ash. Nuttily, the commission’s proceeding against Ash will be secret.
Not only is Ash a crook who schemed and covered up with the now-imprisoned CEO of the Municipal Credit Union during and after she served as MCU’s chair, she also violated all kinds of court ethics rules. If she had followed the guidelines, she never would have been on the MCU board and certainly would never have been chair, her entrée to a life of crime.
In 2008, the court system’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics informed Ash that she could serve on the MCU board, provided the MCU was not involved in litigation (which, of course, it constantly is). She nonetheless joined the board and in 2015 asked if she could be chair. The committee said no, adding that she couldn’t be on the board and needed to resign immediately. She lied to the committee and became chair.
Two footnotes: The committee’s 2008 written opinion was never published, a former bad practice. Their 2015 opinion was also never published because Ash withdrew her request, sidelining the opinion. She then double-crossed the committee. Lesson for them: Publish everything.
