{"id":81603,"date":"2026-01-08T19:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/81603\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T19:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T19:45:09","slug":"bethlehem-area-judges-book-of-grudges-leads-to-misconduct-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/81603\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethlehem area judge\u2019s \u2018book of grudges\u2019 leads to misconduct charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Bethlehem area district judge was charged Wednesday<\/a> for violating judicial conduct standards, in part for keeping a \u201cbook of grudges\u201d<\/a> in which she allegedly wrote disparaging things about litigants who came before her.<\/p>\n

District Judge Amy Zanelli<\/a> is also accused of keeping a sexually explicit desk calendar that made some of her staff uncomfortable, forcing a defendant to leave a courtroom during testimony from his alleged victim, and of being habitually late and rude.<\/p>\n

Zanelli didn\u2019t return a phone message left at her office or an email seeking comment. A staffer from her office said the public is invited to observe Zanelli any time she\u2019s on the bench but didn\u2019t comment on the allegations against the judge.<\/p>\n

Zanelli allegedly called an attorney \u201cjust a d\u2014k\u201d in her \u201cbook of grudges\u201d and made a disparaging comment about at least one other litigant. She allegedly encouraged her staff to write on the papyrus pages inside the leather-bound book, but no one accepted the offer, and she removed the book from her office in 2024. The book violates conduct rules because her comments show bias toward certain litigants, the charging documents say.<\/p>\n

The judge is accused of creating a hostile work environment through her desk calendar, which had sexually explicit content intended to be jokes. One note on the calendar read, \u201cBedroom plants he\u2019ll have to slice through with a machete if he wants that p—y,\u201d the documents say. She removed the calendar from her office in 2022, they say.<\/p>\n

Zanelli allegedly forced a murmuring defendant to sit in the hallway during a victim\u2019s testimony during trial in 2022. Everyone has a constitutional right to confront his or her accuser. When the defendant asked how he could hear the testimony, the judge allegedly told him he could hear from the hallway and then shut the courtroom door and resumed proceedings.<\/p>\n

The charging documents<\/a> accuse the judge of yelling at her staff, of being routinely 30 minutes late for early morning court proceedings and taking extended vacations in the summer, leaving her staff scrambling to reschedule hearings.<\/p>\n

She allegedly conducted proceedings over Zoom from home for about a month in 2024 while she recovered from a broken bone. She allegedly didn\u2019t have permission for the Zoom hearings and failed to follow up with paperwork requested by the state.<\/p>\n

The six-count charging documents<\/a> say Zanelli faces a trial before the state Court of Judicial Discipline. She has not been convicted of a crime and won\u2019t be until she either pleads guilty or is found guilty at trial.<\/p>\n

The accusations against her are similar to allegations leveled<\/a> against former District Judge David Tidd, who was accused of unprofessional behavior in 2017. He was exonerated at trial<\/a> when 12 of the 13 counts against him were dismissed. Zanelli presides over Fountain Hill and a portion of Bethlehem<\/a>. Her office is in Bethlehem in Lehigh County.<\/p>\n

Zanelli will be prosecuted by Disciplinary Board Chief Counsel Melissa Norton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Bethlehem area district judge was charged Wednesday for violating judicial conduct standards, in part for keeping a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":{"0":"post-81603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}