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Politics plays key role in appointments

A 'Press' special report

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Despite years of reforms, in some Bronx courtrooms, it is still just as helpful to know the judge as the law. Sometimes, it’s even more so.

That’s the finding of a Riverdale Press review of discretionary appointments by local judges and the legal practices of politically connected attorneys who often appear before them.

The review found that in spite of repeated efforts to divorce the courthouse from the political clubhouse, links between judges who must seek election and the lawyers who help them win ballot lines and votes, remain strong.

Those ties surface glaringly, the review found, when judges are called upon to appoint attorneys to serve as legal representatives for those unable to care for themselves, or to handle estates and foreclosures.

• As a Supreme Court judge, Nelida Malave-Gonzalez, who was elected in November as the Bronx’s new judge of the surrogate court, repeatedly tapped leaders of the Bronx Democratic County Committee, commonly referred to as the Bronx Democratic Party, to serve as court-appointed counsels, designations that yielded tens of thousands of dollars in fees. Since she began making appointments in 2010, Judge Malave-Gonzalez’s most frequent appointee, records show, has been Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who has represented Riverdale and Kingsbridge in Albany for 19 years and who serves as chair of the Bronx Democratic Party’s county committee.

• Howard Vargas, a past executive director of the Bronx Democratic Party who currently serves as the party’s legal counsel, has won 87 appointments from local judges since reforms went into effect in 2003. Mr. Vargas’ court designations over the years have included about two-dozen appointments as a receiver for troubled multi-family properties in bank foreclosures, although records show that several of the buildings continued to deteriorate under Mr. Vargas’ administration.

Nelida Malave-Gonzalez, Howard Vargas, Lorraine Coyle, Oliver Koppell, Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club, Gerald Sheiowitz, Hillary Sheiowitz, Jeff Klein, Dominic Calderoni, Judge Douglas McKeon, Office of Court Administration, Adam Skaggs, Brennan Center for Justice, Ravi Batra, James Sample, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
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