Judge arrested, led away in handcuffs
An embattled City Court judge was escorted Monday from judicial chambers in handcuffs.
Rochester court deputies and city police officers executed a bench warrant issued for Judge Leticia Astacio’s arrest last week after she missed a Tuesday court appearance related to an August drunkendriving conviction.
Astacio, a Rochester City Court judge, smiled and said hello to the gaggle of reporters waiting at the Monroe County Hall of Justice where officers marched her off to be processed. She returned later for an arraignment before Judge Stephen Aronson of Canandaigua City Court, who issued the warrant and is overseeing her drunken-driving case.
He ordered her held without bail in Monroe County Jail until a Thursday hearing. The reason she missed her court appearance last week was because she had been living in a temple with monks in the mountains of Thailand since May 3, she had texted to her lawyer.
“You’re doing everything to show you don’t care what happens to your public trust,” Aronson said.
Aronson offered Astacio a deal: Plead guilty to violating her initial drunken-driving sentence and receive 45 days in jail, two years of probation and six months on an ankle monitor. She declined and was ordered to jail.
On Feb. 13, 2016, Astacio was arrested around 8 a.m. ET on her way to City Court after state troopers were summoned to what appeared to be a onecar crash on Interstate 490. She refused to take a Breathalyzer.
On Aug. 22, she was sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge that was extended to February 2018 after she admitted violating two conditions: abstaining from alcohol and not driving under the influence.
She returned to Rochester because her supervising judge, Justice Craig Doran of the New York State Supreme Court, had directed she attend a 9 a.m. Monday meeting in his office at the Monroe County Hall of Justice, expressing concern in a letter that her behavior constituted a “voluntary abandonment of public office” that would be deemed a breach of her judicial responsibilities if she failed to show up.