Crooked judges, a compromised ethics cop, and one honest jurist highlight the urgent need to clean up New York’s courts.
NOTE: New York’s courts are not broken by accident. They are broken by design, protected by cowards, and enabled by men who confuse robes with immunity. I’ve seen the rot up close. I’ve lived it. Judges like Castorina abuse power. Judges like Pearlman rewrite laws to serve political masters. Judges like McMahon flee when the lights get too bright. And the so-called ethics cop, Tembeckjian, plays bodyguard instead of watchdog. Then Brendan Lantry did something rare. He read the file. He told the truth. He stepped aside. That took brains. That took backbone. And in this sewer, that makes him stand out. This piece is “A Gem Amidst the Rot.”
By Richard Luthmann
Rot in New York’s Courts
I have seen New York’s so-called “justice” system up close. The rot runs deep. Judges meant to uphold the law instead of treating the bench like a throne, dispensing bias and incompetence.
Look at Justice Juan Merchan – a man whose impartiality is shot. Even President Trump blasted Merchan as “corrupt, biased, and incompetent” after Merchan’s heavy-handed, politically tainted rulings in 2024.
Also in New York County, Jeffrey Pearlman represents a different but equally corrosive strain of judicial rot. Pearlman is not merely incompetent; he is a partisan operative in a robe. His infamous NY-11 redistricting opinion didn’t just redraw lines. It disenfranchised most of Staten Island and effectively smuggled racial sorting and identity politics into the New York State Constitution, a document that contains no such mandate.
At Kathy Hochul’s direction, he carved Staten Island apart, diluted its voting power, and justified it with sanctimony, treating voters as demographic chess pieces rather than citizens with equal rights.
What makes Pearlman’s ruling so dangerous is its arrogance. He didn’t apply neutral law. He advanced a political project and dared anyone to call it out. The opinion bent over backward to sanctify a predetermined outcome aligned with Democratic power brokers who benefit from a fractured Staten Island.
That is how judicial legitimacy collapses—not with bribes in envelopes, but with judges who believe their politics are so righteous they can rewrite constitutions, override voters, and call it justice. Pearlman clung to power and imposed his will.
Then there’s Staten Island’s own Judith R. McMahon, the undisputed queen of the McMahon machine and one of the most destructive judges to ever sit on that bench. Judy McMahon didn’t just bend the system. She ran it.
As an administrative judge almost a decade ago, she steered warrants and cases to friendly judges in the now-defunct Part N to benefit her husband, District Attorney Michael McMahon, padding his stats and protecting his political future. This wasn’t a rumor or gossip. It was an open secret on Staten Island. Prosecutors knew it. Defense lawyers knew it. Judges knew it. And the system tolerated it because it was useful.
McMahon coasted through re-election on backroom deals and party protection, insulated by power and fear.
Then, suddenly, she was gone. At 68, with years of recertifications still available, she “retired.” Officially, it was age. Unofficially, it was panic. Judges do not walk away from power like that unless something is coming.
She didn’t leave triumphantly. She fled under a cloud. Files vanished. Questions went unanswered. No public accounting ever happened. No real investigation ever saw daylight. And that silence tells you everything.
Judy McMahon didn’t just damage individual cases. She poisoned faith in the Staten Island courts. Her exit wasn’t the end of the scandal. It was the cover-up.
Presiding over this gallery of judicial misfits is Ronald Castorina Jr., the worst of the lot. He embodies the corruption, dishonesty, and abuse of power that have turned New York’s courts from institutions of justice into a public joke.
Hovering over all of this misconduct is Robert H. Tembeckjian, the ultimate judicial bodyguard. As head of the Commission on Judicial Conduct, Tembeckjian doesn’t police corrupt judges — he protects them.
Complaints disappear. Investigations stall. Consequences never come.
His job has become less about ethics and more about damage control, shielding politically useful judges from accountability and ensuring the rot never reaches sunlight.
These individuals aren’t guardians of justice – they’re political hacks in robes, accountable to no one.
But every so often, even in New York’s judicial sewer system, a clean note rings out. A single decision reminds you that the robe is supposed to mean something. That judges are meant to protect the integrity of the process, not game it, not hide conflicts, not circle the wagons around political allies.
In a state where the bench is littered with hacks, climbers, fixers, and outright liars, one judge just did something shockingly rare: he told the truth about himself and stepped aside.
That judge is Brendan Lantry.
In a system that rewards silence, complicity, and corruption, Lantry’s recent recusal in my case against Kamillah Hanks, Kevin Barry Love, Ron Castorina, and others wasn’t just correct. It was judicious and smart.
And it stood in humiliating contrast to the parade of bums, political operatives, and ethically bankrupt judges who cling to cases they have no business touching.
A Gem Amidst the Rot: How a Simple Fee Case Turned Into a Political Crime Scene
My case against Hanks, Castorina, and their orbit didn’t start as some grand crusade. It started as math. Old legal fees. Services rendered. Work done. Bills unpaid.
I needed to collect those debts, so I could square up with the federal government and move forward with my life. Simple. Clean. Ordinary. The kind of case New York courts see every day.
I filed in November 2023. From day one, the case should have been routine. Contracts. Quantum meruit. Account stated. End of story.
In fact, it almost was over early. My collections lawyer was ready to offer the defendants (like others who resolved the suit) to take fifteen cents on the dollar. A deal. I would have taken it. Who wants to lock horns with a maniac for the better part of the next decade?
The government would have been paid. Everyone walks away. I would have given less thought to Staten Island. Heck, maybe I might not have learned to love journalism.
Then Kevin Barry Love did what Kevin Barry Love always does as Kamillah Hanks’s self-appointed enforcer.
He threatened my lawyer.
Across state lines. On a recorded call. Talking about law licenses, reputations, and “what happened to Trump’s lawyers.”
That single act blew the case apart. My collections counsel dropped me cold. No motion. No warning. Just gone. It was 2023.
“I don’t want the NY Dems to do to me what they’re doing to Trump’s lawyers,” is what I heard. The guy was no Sidney Powell.
And with Kevin’s threat, and Luthmann left to satisfy the federal government alone (with no lawyer or guardrails), the case stopped being about money.
That’s when the cover-up began.
What followed was a year-plus of procedural ping-pong. Transfers. Reassignments. Delays. Silence. The case bounced around New York County like a hot potato nobody wanted to touch.
Not because it lacked merit, but because of who it named and what it exposed.
This wasn’t just about unpaid fees anymore. It was about how Hanks and Castorina tried to dodge payment, dodge scrutiny, and bury their past political misdeeds by leaning on power, fear, and institutional protection.
And here’s the truth: now it’s not about the money for me.
I want depositions. I want sworn testimony. I want a video. I want perjury traps set carefully and lawfully.
I want Kevin Barry Love explaining his threats under oath. I want Kamillah Hanks explaining campaign finances, off-the-books work, “Hey Baby,” “Cut It”, and who knew what and when about the Debi Rose Fake Facebook page.
I want Castorina answering simple questions that he has spent years dodging, particularly under oath at a 2018 grand jury.
And I want the media there when it happens.
Because this case has grown teeth, it has documents. It has recordings. It has witnesses. It has a paper trail that scares people who are not used to being questioned.
The deal was there once. They blew it. Now they don’t get to buy peace.
They get discovery.
They get depositions.
They get sunlight.
And I have a strong feeling that, one way or another, I’m going to get exactly that.
Did I say that Brendan Lantry is smart? Who would want to be part of this circus, let alone the ringmaster? One that would have probably gone away for about $25,000 each in 2022.
A Gem Amidst the Rot: Why Lantry Got Out Early — and Why That Took Brains and Backbone
This case didn’t need another compromised judge digging in and daring the parties to come after him. Brendan T. Lantry was smart enough to see that immediately.
Smarter still, he didn’t wait for a motion. He didn’t force a public brawl. He didn’t make me file what would have been a recusal motion for the ages. And trust me—it would have been a doozy. You think Rich Hoffman has stories? That motion would have read like a Staten Island political autopsy, served with wine and cheese.
Lantry reviewed the case and saw what too many New York judges ignore or bury: prior political relationships matter. Personal history matters. Appearances matter.
Instead of daring the parties to challenge him, instead of hiding behind technicalities or pretending the record didn’t exist, he put the truth on paper.
In black and white. Signed. Filed.
“My impartiality may be questioned due to my personal relationship with several parties named in this action… Accordingly, I am recusing myself from hearing this matter.”
That single sentence puts Lantry in the top one percent of New York judges. Not because it is extraordinary, but because the rest of the bench refuses to do it. Most judges cling to cases like territory. Lantry stepped away from one he knew would rot the moment he touched it.
He didn’t stop there. He disclosed the uncomfortable facts.
He disclosed that before taking the bench, he served as Richmond County Republican law chair and party chairman. He disclosed that he supported Ronald Castorina Jr. during Castorina’s 2020 judicial campaign. In New York’s clubby, incestuous judicial culture, that fact is usually hidden, denied, or laughed off as irrelevant.
Lantry didn’t hide it. He didn’t minimize it. He didn’t insult the intelligence of the parties or the public.
He acknowledged it. And he stepped aside.
That is integrity. That is accountability. That is how a judge protects the court instead of himself.
By recusing sua sponte, Lantry avoided further poisoning the case. He avoided years of appeals. He avoided turning the courtroom into another credibility graveyard.
He understood something his peers refuse to accept: there are no winners when a conflicted judge, factually or politically, stays on a case. Justice loses. The public loses. The judiciary loses.
So let the record be clear. I commend Brendan Lantry. Not because he did me a favor. He didn’t. Not because he took a side. He didn’t.
I commend him because he showed judgment before exercising power, and restraint before ego.
That should be the rule in New York. Instead, it is the rare exception.
A Gem Amidst the Rot: “Lying Ron” Castorina’s Conspiracy
If Brendan Lantry represents what a judge is supposed to be, Ronald Castorina Jr. is his polar opposite. Where Lantry showed judgment, restraint, and respect for the institution, Castorina shows ego, cruelty, and contempt for the people who appear before him.
Lantry stepped aside to protect the court. Castorina digs in to dominate it.
Ronald Castorina Jr. is a liar and a bully. He is a disgrace to the bench. I know because I’ve lived it. In his courtroom, the law bends to his ego.
Take Michael Perez’s case. Perez, a pro se litigant, came in asking for basic fairness. Castorina didn’t read the papers. He didn’t listen.
He sneered, “You’re taking the bus home. Give me the keys,” ripped the man’s car away, and left him stranded.
Another victim, retired NYPD detective Guy Simonetti, was too ill to travel from Florida. Castorina issued a bench warrant anyway and suggested Simonetti hire a “private ambulance” to haul himself north.
It took another judge to undo that cruelty so Simonetti could spend his father’s final days with him. Castorina calls this “following the law.” I call it abuse.
That cruelty is matched only by Castorina’s corruption. I have filed detailed claims accusing “Lying Ron” of orchestrating a conspiracy to destroy me. Beginning in 2021, he and his political allies — Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks and her partner Kevin Barry Love — lied to federal authorities to try to violate my supervised release and silence my reporting.
They lied to the feds. That is a felony. 18 U.S.C. § 1001.
Castorina also perjured himself before a 2018 grand jury, lying under oath about his role in a fake Facebook smear campaign. This was not some rogue operation. It was a dirty political hit job that Castorina himself helped run.
A sworn affidavit from veteran consultant Michael J. Cox confirms it: “The fake Debi Rose Facebook page was the worst-kept secret of the 2017 campaign. Everyone, including Kamillah and Kevin, knew Luthmann was running the page.”
Cox also confirmed I was promised payment and stiffed — they had money for Paris vacations, but not to pay their workers.
After the scheme collapsed, Castorina denied our long friendship and lied about his involvement to dodge scrutiny.
This is who sits on the New York Supreme Court bench. Ronald Castorina Jr. doesn’t belong in a robe. He belongs in handcuffs.
A Gem Amidst the Rot: The Watchdog Who Won’t Bark
Why do judges like Castorina and McMahon still wield power? Because the watchdog supposed to stop them is asleep – or complicit. I’m talking about Robert Tembeckjian, the longtime Administrator of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
He’s the ethics cop who’s supposed to keep judges in line. Instead, he protects them. Under Tembeckjian’s watch, flagrant judicial misconduct gets a slap on the wrist or a blind eye.
Castorina lies to federal agents and tramples on litigants – the Commission does nothing.
Judge McMahon and her District Attorney husband were implicated in the Part N case-fixing scandal, steering cases to favor Mike McMahon’s prosecutorial stats. No public discipline came of it.
The Commission’s silence is deafening. Perhaps it’s because Tembeckjian himself is tangled up in conflicts of interest. While drawing a taxpayer salary to police judicial ethics, Tembeckjian quietly took a side gig with Balchug Capital, an investment fund with Kremlin connections. He sits on Balchug’s advisory board, working with Russian financiers, even as he’s supposed to judge our judges.
State records show no disclosure of this role; he hasn’t recused himself from cases involving Russian interests. This is the man guarding judicial integrity?
It’s a sick joke.
New York’s top ethics enforcer is moonlighting for a firm tied to Putin’s orbit.
Tembeckjian has authored plenty of articles on ethics, but his own ethics are in shambles. He appears more interested in cashing checks and protecting his cronies than in holding corrupt judges accountable.
The Commission on Judicial Conduct under Tembeckjian has become a black hole where legitimate complaints vanish. It’s all ethical rot and cover-up.
We have a fox guarding the henhouse – and the hens are our courts. No wonder New York’s judiciary reeks of corruption.
A Gem Amidst the Rot: Clean House – Now
There are still glimmers of integrity on the bench. Justice Brendan Lantry is one honest judge amid the chaos. But one decent act by one judge won’t fix this broken system.
We need a purge.
Remove Ronald Castorina from the bench, immediately. The evidence of his misconduct is overwhelming – he lied to law enforcement, violated his oath, and abused litigants.
Each lie to federal agents, each perjury under oath is a crime. If New York’s authorities have any backbone, they must prosecute Castorina for his felonies and make an example of him.
And we must shine a blinding light on Robert Tembeckjian and his fiefdom at the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Subpoena their records, follow the money, and expose every backroom deal that kept corrupt judges like these on the bench.
New Yorkers deserve a judiciary that works for them, not for the political insiders. We’re done with judges who think they’re untouchable. Clean house. End the careers of the crooked judges and the fixers who shield them.
Justice in New York will only be restored when no judge – not Castorina, not McMahon, not Merchan, not Pearlman, not anyone – is above the law.
The time for excuses is over. It’s time for perp walks. It’s time to take the courts back.
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