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A New York choose lately determined to go away the bench, however this isn’t precisely your typical judicial resignation. Mitchell Soules Jr., who shouldn’t be an legal professional, served as a justice of the Little Falls City Courtroom, and left his place shortly after pleading responsible to drug-dealing expenses.
In keeping with the State Fee on Judicial Conduct, Soules was arrested final summer season in a cocaine trafficking investigation, and later suspended from his duties. He formally tendered his resignation final month. The Times Union has extra particulars:
Soules’s arrest was the end result of a three-month investigation by the State Police violent gang and narcotics enforcement staff, an anti-drug squad that helps native police examine narcotics trafficking upstate.
The Rome Sentinel reported that Soules pleaded responsible to the drug gross sales expenses when he appeared final month in Herkimer County Courtroom. The newspaper reported Soules offered cocaine in 2023 and was arrested in German Flatts.
Particularly, Soules pleaded responsible to at least one felony rely of third-degree sale of a managed substance. As a part of his agreement with the Commission, he won’t ever search or settle for appointment to a judicial workplace once more.
The New York Law Journal acquired a press release from Fee Administrator and Counsel Robert Tembeckjian: “Public confidence is irretrievably misplaced in a choose who engages within the legal sale of medicine, and the ensuing injury to the integrity of the courtroom system is immeasurable,” he stated. “However it is usually reassuring that our law-enforcement and ethics-enforcement entities maintain them accountable and shield the general public by eradicating them from positions of belief.”
Soules will probably be sentenced Might 29.
Cocaine-dealing Herkimer County judge resigns [Times Union]
New York Judge Who Pleaded Guilty to Dealing Drugs Resigns From Bench [New York Law Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Legislation, the place she’s labored since 2011. She’d love to listen to from you, so please be at liberty to email her with any suggestions, questions, feedback, or critiques. You possibly can comply with her on X/Twitter and Threads or join along with her on LinkedIn.
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