POLITICS: The sleazy patronage machine is alive and well in NYC courts

A Brooklyn judge handing out cushy positions to connected lawyers proves that corruption is still alive and well in the city court system, despite reforms put in place in the early aughts.

From 2022 to ’24, The Post reported last week, Brooklyn Judge Lawrence Knipel handed out 881 fiduciary appointments to 25 lawyers who’d donated $25,000 in total to his wife, Democratic district leader Lori Knipel.

These gigs typically mean overseeing the assets of businesses, the elderly or the cognitively impaired; they usually yield lawyers ample rewards for minimal effort — which makes them prime patronage. though they’re supposed to be doled out based on merit.

As the only state where county party committees tap nominees for local judgeships, with zero input from the public, New York is primed for such corruption — especially in areas, like most of the city, where one party is overwhelmingly dominant so elections are a foregone conclusion.

Cue a noxious back-scratching circle: Lawyers donate to politicians, pols pick judges, and dutiful jurists grant sweet receivership or conservatorship roles to the palm-greasing lawyers.

Too bad if vulnerable clients (whether aging or disabled) get sub-par representation — or even have their assets looted by an attorney who basically bought his way onto their case.

Rank courthouse corruption throughout the 1990s, especially in Brooklyn, came to a head when Kings County bosses were caught squeezing judicial candidates for $50,000 a pop in exchange for nominations.

That prompted state Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s early 2000s reforms, which tried to quash this corrupt patronage machine by limiting party leaders’ ability to get their political pals on the bench.

Tried, but plainly failed: Today’s sleaze isn’t limited to Brooklyn.

New York Focus recently did a deep-dive investigation into the “judicial patronage problem” in The Bronx and Queens courts, noting (for example) that Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who serves as Bronx County Committee secretary, has received 40 appointments in guardianship and Surrogate’s Court cases since 2010.

The oversight body that’s supposed to root out this favoritism, the Commission on Judicial Conduct, looks either utterly incompetent or willfully blind.

Corruption thrives under one-party rule: In most of the city, good government relies on Democrats holding other Democrats accountable — and even when reformers take over, they historically have wound up milking the system themselves to keep power.

If the public can’t wrest the power of choosing judges from the insiders, slaying the putrid patronage beast festering in New York’s courts requires somehow upending Democrats’ lopsided dominance across the city.

Without some systemic change, the audacious pay-for-play scandals will never stop.