Judge is benched for lawyer slaps

A SHORT-FUSED Queens judge was suspended for “habitually mistreating” lawyers, New York’s top court said Friday.

Housing Court Judge Terrence O’Connor, 69, hasn’t been on the bench since about early April when a state commission recommended his removal for berating lawyers.

But the New York State Court of Appeals’ decision keeps O’Connor’s suspension intact while he fights the recommendation by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

The commission had pushed for O’Connor’s ouster “for habitually mistreating attorneys, abusing his judicial power, failing to follow the law and repeatedly failing to cooperate with the commission’s inquiry into his behavior,” according to the state Court of Appeals’ announcement.

A belligerent O’Connor refused to testify at a testy commission hearing in April 2017, the commission claimed.