The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has dismissed a complaint against Southold Town justices William Price and Louisa Evans alleging failure to properly monitor and supervise a former clerk who pleaded guilty to grand larceny last year for stealing bail money and fines from the court.
Commission administrator and counsel Robert Tembeckjian informed Price of the dismissal by a letter dated Dec. 21, 2015.
Former senior court clerk Christine Stulsky, a 34-year town employee, pleaded guilty last January to stealing $231,000 in bail monies and other cash from the justice court’s coffers between 2009 and 2014. She was sentenced to six months in jail and five years probation and ordered to make full restitution. Stulsky has so far paid back nearly $112,000 and will pay the balance in monthly installments over the rest of her probation period.
The complaint was filed based on unspecified “news reports” about Stulsky’s theft from the court.
“The Comission has dismissed the complaint, noting that although Ms. Stulsky was not your assigned clerk or under your supervision, you and your co-justice, Louisa P. Evans, responded to the news by reviewing existing protocols and implementing improved administrative and financial procedures to protect against such misappropriations occurring or going undetected in the future,” Tembeckjian wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to SoutholdLOCAL by the court.
The court kept separate bail accounts and Stulsky stole money only from the third town justice, Rudolph Bruer, according to prosecutors. Bruer, 75, retired Dec. 31 after the expiration of his term of office. An attorney in Southold admitted to the New York bar in 1965, Bruer had served 20 years on the town bench.
The Dec. 21 letter from the commission’s counsel did not state when the complaint had been filed, by whom or whether the complaint included Bruer, who was not mentioned in the letter.
Complaints to the Commission on Judicial Conduct are confidential and any investigation it undertakes as well as any subsequent disciplinary proceedings are kept secret unless it renders a decision admonishing, censuring or removing a judge from office. Such decisions are made public and are posted on the commission’s website.
There is no record of any decision regarding Bruer on the commission’s website. Bruer could not immediately be reached for comment.
The town board created the new position of justice court director and hired Leanne Reilly to fill the $80,000 per year post beginning Jan. 5, 2015. Reilly, who answers to the supervisor rather than the town justices, is charged with oversight and management of the court’s operations.
Reilly, who served as court director in the Village of Westhampton Beach prior to coming to Southold, has implemented a host of changes to the court’s filing system, its computers, the assignment of duties among the clerks, and the way monies are handled and tracked.
Most of the stolen funds were bail monies deposited with the court to guarantee that people charged with crimes return to court to answer their charges, Reilly said. Stulsky had been the only staff member to handle the bail deposits, which were often in the form of cash. Stulsky often kept the cash instead of depositing it into the appropriate bank account. She also had control of the receipts, the computer where deposits and payments were entered, and the checkbook.
Auditors disapprove of one person having control over that many steps in the process for handling monies and the court’s audit reports cited that deficiency more than once.
The system previously in place allowed Stulsky to manipulate paper and computer records to make it appear as though the money was being handled properly — to reflect deposits that were not actually made to the bank account and checks for the return of bail monies to defendants that were never actually issued.
Reilly has implemented new office systems to segregate all duties involving the handling of monies received, receipts issued and checks disbursed among different staff members, so there are built-in safeguards against one person pilfering funds.
The new court director and her staff have spent the past year combing over and sorting out bail records. Having received restitution funds from Stulsky, the court has been giving notice to bailors to pick up their deposits. Bail not claimed after six months is turned over to the town, which by law holds the money for six years. If it is unclaimed in that time, it is forfeited. The court started sending out notices to bailors in April 2015 and in November turned over to the town nearly $24,000 in unclaimed bail.
