For the second time in a week, a Manhattan judge has recused herself from overseeing a sexual harassment lawsuit against state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and onetime ally Vito Lopez.
Our Barbara Ross reports:
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern filed notice Thursday that she’s firewalling herself from the case assigned to her on Tuesday after another judge, Joan Madden,
because of her longstanding friendship with Silver’s counsel, James Yates.
Kern’s terse notice gave no rationale for her recusal.
Yates was a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice for 18 years before returning to the Assembly in 2011 to become Silver’s lawyer.
He has been cited in a state ethics report as one of those top Silver aides who were involved in deciding that two former Assembly staffers should receive a $103,000 settlement for harassment charges against Lopez, who then represented Brooklyn in the chamber.
Silver has been faulted for not referring that case to an Assembly ethics panel.
The case that keeps losing judges involved Victoria Burhans and Chloe Rivera, two Assembly staffers who are suing Silver, Lopez and the Assembly in state and federal courts, claiming they would never have fallen prey to Lopez’s lechery if Silver had sent the first case to his ethics committee.
There are pending motions to dismiss their cases in state and federal court.
IMAGE: MIKE GROLL/AP
