A Manhattan judge should be censured for accepting $250,000 in “disguised” campaign contributions, a state commission found yesterday.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct determined that Surrogate’s Court Judge Nora Anderson had “undermined public confidence in the independence and integrity of the judiciary” by accepting the money from lawyer Seth Rubenstein, her longtime boss and mentor for the campaign, and then failing to report it on her disclosure forms.
Campaign contributions are supposed to be capped at just over $33,000, but Rubenstein gave Anderson a $100,000 gift followed by a $150,000 loan in 2008 — money that went straight into Anderson’s campaign.
Anderson and Rubenstein were cleared of criminal charges in 2010.
Anderson told the commission, the state agency charged with disciplining judges, that she had relied on faulty advice from Rubenstein that the transactions were on the up and up.
The commission, which has the power to move for a judge’s dismissal, recommended she be censured.