A. Gail Prudenti is retiring or running from the bench?

Another interesting abrupt retirement was recently announced.

A. Gail Prudenti, the Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New York, retired as of July 30, 2015 after 23 years on the bench, to go and work as an administrator for a law school.

It is notable that her new position, as an administrator of a law school, does not involve either judgeship, or the practice of law.

This woman knows the Chief Judge Lippman very well.

Is she retiring because she wants to, or is she running from the bench while investigations against top New York State officials close to Lippman are getting hotter by the day and while the court administration is sued more and more for corruption, misconduct and refusal to comply with Freedom of Information Laws?

In any event, another question arises - who will replace Prudenti?

Michael V. Coccoma?  Coccoma was recently elevated by Lippman as the "chief fiduciary" in the NYS Court Administration, despite lawsuits involving fraud that were dismissed only because of absolute judicial immunity for malicious and corrupt acts.

It seems that the more corrupt and brazen a judge is in New York (if he got high enough, town justices sometimes get disciplined, justices from the County Court and up nearly never get disciplined) - the better career is offered to him/her.

I already wrote about judges of the two appellate divisions, Leslie Stein of the Appellate Division 3rd Department, and Eugene Fahey of the Appellate Division 4th Department who were elevated to the Court of Appeals after brazen misconduct on the bench.

Prudenti successor is NOT Michael V. Coccoma.

So, at least Coccoma was bypassed on his way up the ladder.

I bet, nobody wanted to promote a judge who has been repeatedly sued for corruption, self-dealing, protectionism of his wife through supervising assignments to her cases as an attorney of judges who are close to retirement, are looking into Coccoma's hand to receive post-retirement perks and who oblige Coccoma in retaliating against his and his wife's critics.