NY court officer union chief hates state chief judge Janet DiFiore so much, he’ll spite her by keeping union job two more years
SEP 17, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: SEP 21, 2021
The longtime head of the New York State Court Officers union is retiring from his state court job — but said in a profanity-laced interview he’ll stay on as a labor boss until 2023 to spite the state’s chief judge.
There’s no love between union chief Dennis Quirk and the chief judge, Janet DiFiore.
“Right now, I can call her up on the phone and tell her, ‘F—k you.’ And she can’t do a thing about it,”
Quirk, 71, told the Daily News on Friday.
DiFiore last month suspended Quirk from his state job for 30 days after he posted to social media the addresses of her home in Westchester County and vacation home on Long Island.
As part of the suspension, DiFiore ordered Quirk to give up his firearm.
“They can’t touch me,”
Quirk told The News.
“And believe me, I am determined. She has been the worst, miserable b—h, OK, ever.”
“While clearly not a Renaissance man, it is troubling that the president of a public sector union, whose membership has a large and growing number of female Court Officers, is nothing more than a misogynistic hypocrite,” said the spokesman, Lucian Chalfen.
“In spite of his purported reason for retiring, in reality, the seriousness of the administrative charges he was facing evidently made him not want to face the fact that all bullies eventually meet their match, in this case, the Chief Judge, who to his chagrin, is a woman.”
Quirk has been president of the New York Court Officers Association for 47 years.
He says the 1,400-member union represents officers in civil, family, criminal and Supreme courts in the five boroughs.
His suspension was another escalation in an ongoing dispute between the union and DiFiore over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for court staff. Quirk is no anti-vaxxer — he’s received a third booster shot — but he is adamant that court officials must negotiate any vaccine mandate with the unions.
It was not immediately clear whether Quirk would get his firearm back as a retired law enforcement officer.
Quirk became president of the union in 1974. Critics say he’s held the job so long because he wrote bylaws that ensure the union’s members can never dethrone him, though Quirk denies this.
Charles Compton, a former president of the State Supreme Court Officers Association — which represents 2,600 Supreme Court officers in the five boroughs and Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange and Dutchess counties — called Quirk “the Fat Man” in a recent Daily News Voice of the People letter.
“Quirk’s problems with DiFiore have very little to do with her vaccination policies or any other policies,” Compton said in an interview.
The problem, Compton said, is that
“Quirk lost the internal clout and power he had for decades when she took over”
from former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, a childhood friend of ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who is imprisoned on federal corruption charges.
“He was left out in the cold,”
Compton said of Quirk.
“He’s like a petulant child throwing a tantrum because he lost his power, and she won’t give it back to him. He used to be king of the courts. Now he just sits on the throne.”
Quirk insists he has the backing of his members and that his dedication to them fueled the chaotic end to his long career in law enforcement.
He says leaving his state job removes “the muzzle” that barred him from criticizing DiFiore.
“I have freedom of speech, and I am determined to expose her for the corrupt, unethical individual she is,”
he said.
Outgoing Chief Judge Janet DiFiore should be disbarred, ethics complaint charges
AUG. 30, 2022 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: SEP 20, 2023
A bombshell complaint urges court officials to strip the law license of outgoing New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, alleging a number of ethical transgressions, The Post has learned.
Wednesday is DiFiore’s final day in charge of the state judiciary after announcing her abrupt resignation last month.
Dennis Quirk, the longtime head of the New York State Court Officers union, is filing the 13-page complaint with Jerold Ruderman, who chairs the grievance committee in the Ninth Judicial District.
The complaint charges that DiFiore improperly intervened in a disciplinary case involving Quirk; refused to comply with court orders when the chief judge was sued by 46 older judges forced out of their jobs; and ruled on cases instead of recusing herself involving the law firm Greenberg Traurig, which personally represented her in the litigation involving the older judges.
Janet DiFiore
Quirk also accused DiFiore of “conspiring” with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the appointment of four additional judges to the state Court of Claims to “clear the pathway” for the chief’s daughter, Alexandra Murphy, to run for and be elected to a seat on the state Supreme Court in Westchester County.
DiFiore, a former Westchester District Attorney, was a Cuomo appointee to the bench. She wrote the majority 4-3 Court of Appeals decision that tossed out the Democratic Party drawn legislative maps as illegal gerrymandering.
JUDGES
Ad seeks new chief judge for New York after Janet DiFiore announces resignation
Her daughter, Murphy had no opposition in her race for judgeship.
DiFiore abruptly announced her resignation in July.
Within hours, published reports said the Commission on Judicial Conduct was investigating whether DiFiore improperly used her influence to urge court officials to punish Quirk in a disciplinary proceeding. Some observers speculated the probe triggered her unexpected resignation, which DiFiore denied.
In the new complaint, Quirk argued that DiFiore’s alleged abuses should bar her from practicing law altogether when she leaves the bench. Typically, ex-judges land well-paid gigs at established law firms.
“Based on this litany of unethical behavior, I firmly believe former Chief Judge DiFiore should be disbarred,” Quirk said.
Quirk said DiFiore’s resignation does not absolve her from responsibility for her “pattern of unethical conduct” and “cannot inoculate her from the rules applicable to every lawyer licensed to practice in New York.”
“She should be held to the highest standards of the profession because no one is above the law,” Quirk said. “Certainly not the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals.”
DENNIS QUIRK
Dennis Quirk charged she should be barred from practicing law.
The Office of Court Administration suspended Quirk for 30 days last year amid a dispute over the COVID-19 vaccine edict for court employees. An OCA rep told The Post at the time that Quirk put DiFiore at “grave risk of death” by posting her Westchester and Hamptons area addresses on Facebook.
The Quirk complaint alleges DiFiore improperly put her thumb on the scale in his disciplinary case, by sending a letter to Phyllis Flug, the hearing officer in his case, on her official letterhead urging the officer to punish Quirk.
“It cannot be disputed that former Chief Judge DiFiore was not permitted to submit such
a letter, let alone have ex parte communications with a hearing officer,” Quirk wrote in the complaint.
He said his suspension was “an attempt to stifle the voices of the 1,500 court officers who ensure the safety of judges, attorneys, and litigants every day.”
OCA spokesman Lucien Chalfen, responding on behalf of DiFiore and the judiciary, said, “At this point what I would say is that: I am not going to dignify that letter with a response.”
Alexandra [DiFiore]Glazer and Matthew Murphy
SEP 9, 2012 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: SEP 20, 2023
Alexandra DiFiore Glazer, the daughter of Janet M. DiFiore and Dennis E. Glazer of Bronxville, N.Y., was married Saturday evening in Southampton, N.Y., to Matthew Thomas Murphy, a son of Catherine O. Murphy and George J. Murphy of Fort Washington, Pa.
The bride’s mother, a former State Supreme Court justice in White Plains who is now the Westchester County district attorney, officiated at the Sebonack Golf Club.
The bride, 28, and the groom, 27, met in September 2009 on their first day as assistant district attorneys in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where they still work.
Mrs. Murphy graduated cum laude from Vanderbilt and received a law degree from Fordham. Her father is a partner at the Manhattan law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Mr. Murphy graduated from Boston College, from which he also received a law degree. His mother is the regional solicitor in Philadelphia for the federal Department of Labor. His father is a partner at the Newark law firm Gibbons, P.C.; he works in Philadelphia.
1 comment
This horrible “woman” upholds wrongful convictions to please corrupt D.As aswell as Corrup buddy judge danny chun choi. All can rot in hell Add Singas to the mix aswell.