Politics
Ex-Judge Forced Off Bench for Threats to Teens Is Back on Public Payroll
Erin P. Gall, who resigned from a New York State Supreme Court judgeship after footage showed her threatening to shoot Black teenagers, is now working as a lawyer for Herkimer County.
A former judge who resigned from the bench after threatening to shoot Black teenagers at a party has been hired for a key legal post by an upstate New York county.
The ex-judge, Erin P. Gall, a Republican, is now an assistant attorney for Herkimer County. Local Democrats said they were appalled by the appointment, while a Republican leader defended it.
Ms. Gall, 53, formerly a State Supreme Court justice in neighboring Oneida County, started her new job on Jan. 2 — months after saying she would fight a state commission’s decision recommending her removal from the bench, and one week before the state Court of Appeals granted her motion to withdraw a request for a review of the decision, according to court documents.
She had resigned her judgeship in December after being suspended in July. A state commission found that Ms. Gall, who is white, had engaged in a “racially offensive, profane” rant at a high school graduation party that was recorded by an officer’s body camera.
In her new position, Ms. Gall will assist the county attorney in all legal matters and will be paid about $108,150 a year, according to Steven R. Billings, a personnel director at the Herkimer County attorney’s office. Her annual salary as a Supreme Court justice was $232,600.
Mr. Billings said the county attorney, Lorraine H. Lewandrowski, had chosen to hire Ms. Gall, and that it would be up to her whether Ms. Gall works on cases involving juveniles. Ms. Lewandrowski did not respond to a request for comment.
