NY judge dead in Hudson

Afro-Muslim pioneer

A judge on New York’s highest court who was the first Muslim woman to serve on a bench in US history was found dead Wednesday on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River, sources said.

Sheila Abdus-Salaam, 65, was discovered floating in the water near 132nd Street at around 1:45 p.m., according to police sources.

Witnesses had spotted her fully clothed body and called 911.

Abdus-Salaam (pictured), an associate judge on the state’s Court of Appeals, had been reported missing from her home in Harlem earlier in the day, sources said.

There were no obvious signs of trauma on her body, which was identified by her husband, Gregory Jacobs. Sources said her death appeared to be a suicide.

In addition to being the country’s first Muslim female judge, Abdus-Salaam was the first Af- rican-American woman to be appointed to the state’s Court of Appeals. She presided over her last three cases on March 29, according to records.

“I’m deeply saddened at having lost a dear friend and colleague, and the court has suffered a terrible blow,” Jonathan Lippman, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals from 2009 to 2015, told The Post.

“She was a superb jurist and an even more superb human being,” he said, adding that he knew her for many years.

“To some degree, we grew up together in the court,” Lippman said. “I’ve known her in all her different roles in the court.”

After receiving her degree from Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam began her legal career as a staff attorney at East Brooklyn Legal Services. She rose through the state ranks before eventually being elected to the Supreme Court in 1993.

Gov. Cuomo appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 2013.

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder, who attended Columbia with Abdus-Salaam, was in attendance for her historic swearing-in ceremony. AbdusSalaam noted how unlikely her and Holder’s professional achievements in law would have been four decades ago.

“Who knew . . . that you would be the first black United States attorney general, and I would be the first black woman on the New York Court of Appeals?” she told him with a big smile.

Neighbors and friends described her as a “squeaky clean” judge who wasn’t afraid to call it how she saw it.

“If you were gonna go in front of someone, that’s who you would want to go in front of,” pal Pat Miller, 56, told The Post.

“She was totally unbiased,” he said, remembering a time he asked her to use her “connections” to “pull some strings” for him after he got in trouble — and she refused.

“She said, ‘I won’t abuse my power,’ ” Miller recalled. “That’s how clean she was.”