107. Landlord-tenant law and lawlessness
In 2001, New York Supreme Court justice (=trial court judge) Reynold Mason declared that the courts of New York state were not bound by state law regarding evictions:
Ironically? That means that Judge Mason not only declared himself "independent" of the law itself, but he issued a ruling in a moot case. But that, as it turned out, was the least of his sins.
Here's an incident that tells us even more about Judge Mason's attitude toward landlords:
The five charges of misconduct sustained by the Commission centered on [Mason]'s misuse of his attorney escrow account while he was a practicing attorney and after he became a Civil Court Judge. Evidence received at the hearing established that petitioner vacated a rent-stabilized apartment in 1992 and installed his brother-in-law in the apartment over the objection of the landlord. After the brother- in-law's attempts to pay rent directly to the landlord failed, he forwarded his rental payments to petitioner, making all but two of the checks payable to petitioner "as attorney." This continued each month for several years resulting in petitioner receiving more than $15,000 in rent from his brother-in-law.
Petitioner deposited at least $7,000 of the rent money in his attorney escrow account. The record reveals that petitioner used a portion of the funds to pay personal expenses, writing checks directly from his escrow account to "cash," to himself, and to various creditors. As of December 1994, shortly before petitioner took the bench, his attorney escrow account had a balance of approximately $1,900. While a sitting Judge, petitioner continued using the account for personal purposes, including writing checks to cash, his wife, an automotive finance company, a support collection unit, a church, an extermination firm and a political club.
During the Commission investigation, petitioner stated he had no legal right to retain the rent money. Rather, he claimed he was holding the rent for the landlord with the intent to deliver it at a future time. At the hearing, however, petitioner contended he had lawfully sublet the apartment to his brother-in-law and therefore had a right to personally collect rent on the apartment and to use the rent proceeds to pay personal expenses.
More detail in provided in the specification of charges by the Commission on Judicial Conduct.
When Judge Mason was removed from the bench for chiseling the landlord and embezzling his brother-in-law's money, his attorney was defiant and contemptuous:
Mason, a Democrat who was first elected a lower court civil judge in 1995 and then won a 14-year term as a Supreme Court civil justice in 1997, "is in complete disbelief," said his attorney, Paul Gentile.
"The Court of Appeals has cast aside a good judge without good reason," Gentile said.
He quoted his client as saying, "I look around and see the corruption and wrongdoing of judges being reported. I did nothing wrong and I'm removed."
Gentile was even more ferocious in comments to the New York Times, saying that the disciplinary committee was engaged in "a bureaucratic lynching."
By June, 2004, representing himself, ex-Judge Mason was a bit more contrite as he surrendered his law license:
[Mason] acknowledges that there is a disciplinary proceeding presently pending against him alleging conversion, failing to promptly pay or deliver to a third person funds that person was entitled to receive, commingling, improperly issuing escrow checks to cash, and providing inaccurate and misleading responses to the Commission on Judicial Conduct. He also acknowledges that he cannot successfully defend himself on the merits against such charges.
The judge's refusal to follow the law on the bench had no negative consequences. But refusal to follow the law in his private life meant professional ruin. The difference, I suppose, is that Judge Mason personally pocketed his brother-in-law's rent money, while (as far as we know) he received no direct personal benefit from his declaration of independence from New York law.
Saturday, May 6, 2006 at 09:11PM in Crimes of Judging, Distribution of powers
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