A judge who was captured on video pushing a police officer in a brawl over a parking space is being replaced on the bench.
Judge Mark Grisanti, an acting State Supreme Court justice in Buffalo, New York, was recorded on a body camera shirtless and shoving a cop who was trying to handcuff his wife.
Grisanti instigated a physical and verbal altercation with a neighbor over a parking spot in June 2020. Grisanti called 911 when he saw the neighbor’s vehicle in his driveway, according to a state Commission on Judicial Conduct in late April.
The judge and his wife shouted profanities at neighbors and two cops responded to the scene. One of the officers nailed Grisanti’s wife to the ground to try to handcuff her.
‘You arrest my f****** wife… you’re going to be sorry,’ Grisanti said at the time.
‘My son… and my daughter are… both police officers.’
The judge was then handcuffed and ‘continued to drop the names of high-ranking police officials and the Mayor of Buffalo’, according to the commission.
Grisanti has been serving as a ‘holdover’ since his Court of Claims term expired in 2023.
His name was not on Governor Kathy Hochul’s list of 25 nominees, and the state Senate’s Judicial Committee did not reappoint him, stated Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a spokesman for the chair of the commission.
Grisanti’s lawyer, Terrence Connors, said his client had not received correspondence that he would not be reappointed as of Wednesday.
He was appointed to the court in 2015.
‘Lawyers and judges who best know his work want him to continue on the bench,’ stated Connors.
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‘Even the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, after a thorough investigation, confirmed that, on balance, two hours of misconduct do not warrant removal from his position on the court.’
But court spokesman Al Baker said Grisanti will stay on the bench only until a new judge starts his term.
It is not he only drama involving a judge in the US recently.
In January, a judge in a Las Vegas court was attacked by a felon who lunged over a bench and pummeled her in the middle of his sentencing.
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