The state judicial oversight commission ordered Queens Civil Court Judge Joseph Kasper to be removed from the bench last week in a decision that focused on his continued, under-the-table practice of law from the bench.<\/p>\n
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct found that, for two years after he became a judge, Kasper<\/a> continued working for his clients, allowed a non-attorney staff member with prior felony convictions to illegally file legal documents using his credentials, and repeatedly failed to file financial disclosures.<\/p>\n \u201cJudge Kasper facilitated a convicted felon\u2019s masquerade as a lawyer for almost two years and continued to practice law himself, which a full-time judge cannot do,\u201d the commission\u2019s counsel and administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian said. Such egregious conduct and contempt for the rule of law is inimical to the role of a judge and requires his removal from office.\u201d<\/p>\n A focus of the commission\u2019s decision was Kasper\u2019s relationship with Janice Bar \u2014 a personal friend, long-time political ally from the Queens County Republican Party, and a paralegal with two felony convictions \u2014 whom he allowed to perform legal work for his clients while impersonating an attorney, the commission found.<\/p>\n \u201c[Kasper] detracted from the dignity of judicial office and showed disrespect for the judicial system by practicing law as a full-time judge in violation of the rules and by facilitating and failing to take any action regarding Ms. Bar\u2019s highly improper conduct,\u201d wrote a panel of commissioners.<\/p>\n After spending decades as a perennial candidate for the judiciary<\/a> while running his own legal firm, Kasper became the first Republican judge<\/a> to win a judicial election in Queens in decades in 2022. The commission found that Kasper transferred some of his ongoing cases to a neighboring law office, but others he kept, empowering Bar to do most of the substantive work on them, including making court appearances.\u00a0<\/p>\n Richard Emery, Kasper\u2019s lawyer and a previous member of the judicial conduct commission, said he wasn\u2019t disputing that Kasper \u201cengaged in misconduct,\u201d but argued that it didn\u2019t meet the threshold of \u201csevere misconduct\u201d warranting removal and was out of step with the commission\u2019s precedent. Kasper plans to appeal the decision, Emery said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s basically only accused of being loyal to his former clients,\u201d Emery told amNewYork Law. \u201cHe had \u2026 a local practice of his friends and neighbors and political associates and felt committed to them.\u201d<\/p>\n State rules prohibit full-time judges from practicing law. After he became a judge at the outset of 2022, there were multiple cases where Kasper advised clients, negotiated settlements, appeared at virtual court conferences, requested adjournments, and signed legal documents, according to the commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n In a matrimonial case, the commission found, Kasper refused to finalize a client\u2019s divorce until she paid him $1,000 in cash as the final part of the retainer she had agreed to pay once her case had been completed. In response to receiving a bundle of cash, Kasper gave the client a note promising that his neighbor\u2019s legal practice would take over the case. <\/p>\n When the client walked into court for her next conference, she did not have an attorney present. Texts that the commission gathered indicated that Kasper told the client that he was parked in front of the courthouse, but that Bar would go up to assist her.<\/p>\n In at least 10 instances, Bar used an email signature that read, \u201cJanice Bar, Attorney at Law\u201d in correspondence that she had with Kasper\u2019s clients after he joined the bench. In multiple instances, Bar used Kasper\u2019s court system-authorized e-filing credentials to file new cases and identify herself as Kasper. <\/p>\n While there are limited circumstances under which non-attorneys can access an attorney\u2019s court account, Bar far exceeded what\u2019s allowed, the commission found.<\/p>\n After Kasper became aware that Bar had impersonated a lawyer and conducted an examination in court, Kasper took no steps to address that misconduct, according to the commission.<\/p>\n The commission wrote that Bar\u2019s criminal history added to the severity of her role in his practice. In 2016, Bar was convicted of forgery and making an apparently sworn false statement. Kasper helped her appeal from the convictions, but a higher court upheld them, the commission reported.<\/p>\n Kasper had accrued financial issues from his judicial campaign as well. He failed to file the mandatory candidate financial disclosure statement for his 2021 campaign \u2014 a lapse that he failed to correct until 2025, according to the commission.<\/p>\n Regardless of whether Kasper wins his appeal or not, his days in his current judicial role are numbered. He just turned 70 in June \u2014 the mandatory retirement age for civil court judges. His forced removal would be put on hold until the state Court of Appeals reviews his case, if Kasper moves forward with his appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state judicial oversight commission ordered Queens Civil Court Judge Joseph Kasper to be removed from the bench…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[119998,119999,120000,120001,1179,90399,110711,120002,99617,9,24,1181,120003,63,120004,122,32985,124,120005,123],"class_list":["post-318102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-commission-on-judicial-conduct","tag-court-corruption","tag-janice-bar","tag-judge-joseph-kasper","tag-judicial-ethics","tag-judicial-misconduct","tag-judicial-oversight","tag-judicial-removal","tag-legal-ethics","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-courts","tag-new-york-legal-news","tag-nyc","tag-practicing-law","tag-queens","tag-queens-civil-court","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-judiciary","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}