‘Struck at the Heart of the Criminal Justice System’: Ex-Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gets 15 Months in Prison for Obstructing Probe – By Adam Klasfeld (Law and Crime) / April 20, 2022
A former Brooklyn Supreme Court justice will spend more than a year in prison for obstructing an investigation into fraud and corruption at the Municipal Credit Union, a non-profit, multibillion-dollar financial institution.
Then-state judge Sylvia Ash “took repeated steps, over multiple months, to seek to obstruct the federal criminal investigation into misconduct at MCU that took place during Ash’s tenure as chair of its Board of Directors,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams wrote in a statement. “Ash agreed to do so with the now imprisoned former CEO of the credit union, who provided her with a steady stream of benefits from MCU, including after she was directed to resign from MCU’s board. Today’s sentence sends a clear message that those who attempt to thwart a federal investigation face serious consequences for that corrosive conduct.”
Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in pronouncing Ash’s 15-month sentence that her “crimes struck at the heart of the criminal justice system.”
Ash served as a New York State court judge between 2006 and March 2022, when she was convicted
