To your health!

Judge vows return amid his 3-year sick leave

THE MANHATTAN judge who has been getting the best of an unlimited sick time policy for nearly three years could be making a comeback as he faces an evaluation by court officials and the state agency overseeing judicial conduct, his lawyer said.

Justice Daniel McCullough, 65, who is currently at a Long Island rehabilitation facility getting postsurgery treatment, has refrained from making the call to either retire on a hefty pension or to apply for disability benefits and continues to rake in an annual salary of $193,000.

“It is our expectation based upon the current rate of the recovery and the progress that he has made to date that he intends to return to his judicial duties on or about March 27, subject to being cleared by the appropriate (Office of Court Administration) medical team that obviously would want to meet with him,” said McCullough’s attorney Roger Adler.

His aim is to be back on the bench on March 27, the first day of a new court term.

Adler conceded in an interview last Friday that if the judge’s plan to return in the spring “proves wildly inaccurate or materially inaccurate,” he’d consider bowing out of his nine-year judicial term.

McCullough’s cases and courtroom staff were reassigned long ago and there has been no suggestion of a return until now.

“There’s no way he’s coming back,” a courthouse staffer said.

Adler said he did not know whether the state Commission on Judicial Conduct expected to conclude their investigation after McCullough’s projected return date.

The commission has the authority to dismiss McCullough or to force him to retire due to a medical inability to perform his duties. The panel reviews the conduct of sitting state court judges when complaints are made against them.

McCullough is also in discussions with the Office of Court Administration over his prolonged sick time absence that began in April 2014.

“We recognize the two different groups may have two different missions or focuses,” Adler said. “We will be and are cooperating with all of them and recognize that responsibility.”

McCullough was appointed in 2010 by then-Gov. David Paterson.