“Town Justice Deanna Siegel has agreed to resign later this month after she failed to report court funds to the state Comptroller’s office and send them to the town in a timely way after repeatedly being reminded to do so, according to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Siegel also did not appear for testimony before the commission, the panel said in a decision posted Wednesday and reported earlier in the day by the New York Law Journal.
Siegel, a lawyer since 1985 and a Duanesburg justice since 2015, will step down June 29. Her term was to end on Dec. 31, 2020.
According to the commission, Siegel failed to report and remit by established deadlines tens of thousands of dollars over several months beginning in December 2015 and lasting into early 2017.
In a June 2017 document submitted to the commission, she cites computer problems in the court office, but acknowledged that “this is still not sufficient excuse for my delays in filing, but I will
state that there were multiple times that I did attempt to get reports filed and could not do so. I did
not however follow through with coming into Town Hall to deal with the Comptroller’ s office
during the Comptroller’s business hours. This is my fault.”
She told the panel she let personal problems overwhelm her and “impede my proper conduct.
As part of the determination, she has agreed not to seek judicial office again””
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Times Union 21 June 2018.