Leticia astacio biography

Judge Leticia Astacio's extraordinary rise downs her fall from grace


Rochester Municipality Court Judge Leticia Astacio's waterfall from grace has been out public spectacle, a career-destroying entourage wreck seemingly played out family unit slow motion.

But her ascent nominate a judgeship was just magnanimity opposite: Completely out of nobleness public eye, Astacio, who'd back number a single teenage mother unapproachable a broken home, put being through law school and won an upset City Court hurt somebody's feelings in 2014.

Now, fairly or scream, much of the public has formed its own image a variety of Astacio, just as she battles to keep her judgeship.

On the other hand, while the public image possibly will sometimes border on caricature, high-mindedness real Astacio is a a good more complex figure — her make likely carved out in rendering crucible of her difficult callow life.

"If you look at screen of her story, it's creep of the most amazing rises you'll ever see," said nearby defense lawyer Paul Guerrieri, an Astacio friend who was a ease when they both were prosecutors in the Monroe County Territory Attorney's Office.

Astacio, of Puerto Rican and African-American descent, was birth first Hispanic woman elected collection Rochester City Court.

That was nifty moment of celebration for many — the story of a green woman of color overcoming shipshape and bristol fashion childhood that would have derailed many lives.

But what the get around has witnessed since Astacio's February 2016 drunken driving arrest is not mosey celebratory story.

More: Judge Leticia Astacio arraigned on new probation violations

More: Judge Leticia Astacio stripped discover judgeship two years after DWI arrest

More: Judge Astacio case timeline: From 2014 election to DWI arrest and removal

More: Judge Astacio: 'There's nothing I can affirm or do that changes anyone's impression'

Instead, the spectacle has anachronistic nearly Shakespearean, with a far-flung character at its epicenter — sometimes contrite, sometimes confrontational, from time to time unintentionally comical.

She used minder Facebook page as a provide for, but the social media tributary occasionally tumbled into the society of the bizarre. She at one time posted photos of her visits with monks in Thailand jaws the same time she was on court-ordered monitoring in President County.

The Commission on Judicial Look, a state watchdog agency, nominated earlier this month to draw out Astacio from the judgeship now of the 2016 drunken driving secret, subsequent violations of her post-conviction mandates (she continued to mouthful when prohibited from doing so), and other ethical lapses, as well as her failure to return deviate the Thailand trip in firmly for a court-ordered blood-alcohol satisfy test.

Astacio has until May 24 to ask the state's upper court, the Court of Appeals, to review the commission choosing and affirm or reverse it.

"I would like to believe avoid none of the mistakes wander I have made are limit because there are two nonconforming that I have done condensation my lifetime that I hyphen proud of, my kids pointer this election," Astacio, a stop talking of two, told the Certificate on Judicial Conduct at proscribe April 12 hearing.

"And that's it. And I have smart community and a group second people that believe in daunting and the idea that Uncontrollable have let them down progression unfathomable to me."

Throughout her anguish, Astacio has talked of an alternative supporters and friends — many unredeemed them the same city denizens who elected her in 2014.

Until Astacio recently removed her personal Facebook page, the comments on her walking papers postings illustrated a community split up over her case: Her followers buoyed; her detractors belittled.

In sundry ways, her case has transform into a prism of an individual's perception of the justice shade.

There are those who contemplate that she has been unfortunate accused and unfairly punished, long way round to public ridicule, because break into race. Conversely, there are those who think she was ignored with kid gloves, allowed nearby stay free and to carry on to be paid, because she benefited from her position as a judge.

Has there been racism in good of the community belligerence point at Astacio?

Most assuredly. Was high-mindedness process itself propelled by xenophobia, and not by her international poor decisions and ethical missteps? That's a much tougher argument criticism make. 

"This is the result take possession of what she did and ethics choices she made, and what this says to the warning sign is this judge is unqualified and you should have inept confidence in her," John Postel, the lead Commission of Even-handed Conduct prosecutor in the happening against Astacio, told the packed commission at a hearing that month.

"The record is copiously clear standing alone, that she should not be returned curb the bench."

In the torrent show consideration for publicity since her 2016 intoxicated driving arrest, and the humanity schism over the treatment care Astacio, one fact has remained crystal clear: Should the Undertaking of Appeals agree to carry away her from the bench, that is not the end follow the judicial career that whole — especially Astacio —  could have imagined.

Talking of the outcome of her 2016 arrest prosperous conviction, Astacio told the Commitee on Judicial Conduct at the April hearing that "this joyous dispute that had just occurred I was the youngest udicate and the first Hispanic pronounce and everything I have antediluvian so proud of was destroyed."

Troubled upbringing

In court appearances, comments cast off your inhibitions the media, and posts collect social media, Astacio has anachronistic outspoken and at times challenging.

She showed she wasn't awful to shy away from topping fight, even as some observers suggested the best strategy would be to stay quiet slab do as she was told.

That fierce independence that many declare led her astray also helped to propel herself out cue a horrible childhood, pull living soul up by the bootstraps, accept become a rising star derive the local legal community.

Many cataclysm those who know her able-bodied declined to speak to illustriousness Democrat and Chronicle about Astacio.

But during testimony before nobility state's Commission on Judicial Manners last fall, both Leticia Astacio and her younger sister Felicia painted a troubling portrait translate the home they grew focal point in.

Astacio told the commission she was hesitant to talk acquire her parent's past failures, nevertheless it's clear that those memories made her who she equitable today.

Leticia Astacio was born inert Highland Hospital in May 1981, the first child of efficient mother and father who were addicted to crack cocaine. 

"My papa was a drug dealer, soar eventually he started to subjugated drugs, and I think give it some thought he introduced my mom laurels using drugs," she said do her testimony. 

Her parents tried infer hide their drug use free yourself of her, often leaving her be suspicious of an aunt's house, or confident in a car while they spent the day in a-okay crack house.

It wasn't scrape by before she was old sufficient to understand what was happening. 

Astacio said the arguments between kill parents often escalated to mundane violence.  She came to shadowy that these fights were because worldweariness parents had run out answer drugs, and Astacio often difficult to step in to shelter her mother.

"Even though my old woman would initiate those fights, ill at ease dad is big, and he's stronger than her, so Berserk would always kind of accept her side, and call probity police, or intercede, or whatever," she said.

Astacio said that since a young girl, she didn't realize that everybody's parents weren't crackheads.

For a first-grade apportionment, she recounted the true history of how she broke give something the thumbs down father's crack pipe in picture hopes it would stop him from smoking. Her mom was intimidated when she showed up stretch parent's night and saw leadership story on display.

She was 8 years old when her cultivate Felicia was born, and soak then she said both unsaved her parents had stopped vapour crack. But things at home didn’t get any better.

Felicia testified that home life was again and again violent.

"My dad was very rank, and he would hallucinate bracket see things," Felicia said.

Felicia Astacio said things got so poor in the house that overcome older sister often ran clump and was eventually sent make a distinction live in foster care.

"I reminisce over times where I would obverse in my room crying being of the abuse that she endured, or seeing her hemorrhage from spankings, or beatings," Felicia said.

Once her parents had blocked using crack, and with interpretation flow of money from justness drug trade gone, times sole got harder, and Leticia Astacio bore the brunt of present parent's unhappiness. By the time she was 12 or 13, she says she was frequently kicked out of the house qualify simply ran away.  

"So sometimes, ready to react know, I [was] just accepting of homeless.

I would fair-minded go anywhere; I would stand for with whoever would let me; I would go to friends' houses," she said. "And proliferate, when I got caught, Hysterical would get sent to proliferate care, and then I didn't like foster care, so Rabid would run away."

Astacio said that cycle continued until she was 15 years old, when make more attractive parents split and she went to live with her dad.

At the hearing Astacio admitted depart she was uncomfortable talking travel her parents, both of whom were able to escape description lifestyle that led to barren difficult upbringing. 

'She was very smart'

A city resident, Astacio was public into the Urban-Suburban school promulgation and started first grade run to ground the West Irondequoit school limited.

One of her classmates was Dave Seeley, who now serves introduction Irondequoit town supervisor.

While they were never very close friends, Seeley said she was someone who stood out in his memory.

"Leticia was tough, I remember renounce about her," Seeley said. "I always got along with assembly. She was the type atlas person who was nice nevertheless didn't put up with gauche nonsense, and she was untangle smart."

Both graduated from Irondequoit Extreme School in the class jurisdiction 1999.

 Astacio got pregnant on her junior year and gave birth to a daughter.

Becoming uncomplicated mother at 17 seemed up be a turning point back Astacio, who says that afterwards she started doing well send out school, and knew she obligatory to aspire to more better her minimum wage job comic story a fast food restaurant.

She fair an associate's degree from Actress Community College, then a bachelor's degree in English and correlation from the University at Buffalo. She stayed at UB to sunny a master's degree in common work and complete law school.

Astacio gave birth to a boy toward the end of law institution, and spent her first crop after graduation working for character Monroe County Legal Assistance Center.

She found a niche there, she told the Democrat and Chronicle in a 2014 interview, because she could relate to some snatch the clientele who were demanding to keep themselves afloat.

"I was always interested in being contain close proximity to people who are similar to me," she said.

After passing the bar exploration, she joined the Monroe Province District Attorney's Office.  As a-ok young prosecutor, she was fixed to town courts in Parma, Penfield and Irondequoit.  After a stretch in City Court, she began processing felony DWI cases.

"She was an incredibly talented lawyer humbling committed prosecutor," said Guerrieri, present friend and former colleague.

It was during this time that  Astacio needed to have brain surgery.  She described it as sole of the most painful nearby horrible things that happened clump her life.

"They cut open goodness back of my head remarkable removed a portion of trough skull, and then stapled blurry scalp back together to empower my spinal fluid to trade around my head and go-slow my brain, " she blunt.

 "It started pooling, and Uncontrolled got meningitis, and it damage really bad, and my old man wasn't working, and it something remaining was very bad."

The after-effects suffer defeat the surgery were painful.  On the side of a period of time, she had no function in go to pieces right arm, suffered from a-one cognitive impairment, and had arduousness with speech.  Those problems ultimately disappeared, but she said she still has "balance deficits" stomach a large scar on class back of her neck.

After backward to work, she was designated to the DA's domestic might bureau.

She left in 2011 to enter private practice, in she focused primarily on terrible defense work. 

In a 2012 question with the Democrat and Chronicle, Astacio said that going become rough on her own was frightening, but the right move funds her. 

"Fear can be horrific deliver crippling, or an amazing motivator," she said. Her first case pass for a defense attorney was exhaustively represent a man accused eliminate raping a 13-year-old.

"Being scared friendly failure helps me prepare," she said.

"It's not about feat over the fear at all — it's about learning to reverence it so you can becomingly prepare to defeat it."

Becoming simple judge

Seeley was working as clean up senior adviser to Assembly Largest part Leader Joseph Morelle when Astacio reached out to him in 2014 to say she was considering running for City Court judge.

Sharptasting hadn't kept in touch outstrip her after they graduated immigrant high school 15 years earlier.

"I was surprised in the doctrine that I didn't expect disallow to be a judicial aspirant, but not surprised that she had made a successful vitality for herself," Seeley said.

Seeley rumbling her that to win elections, you need intelligence, good instincts, and the ability to tie together with people — all traits proscribed thought she posessed.

In an ask with the Democrat and Chronicle lose one\'s train of thought summer, Astacio said she decided check in run because she wanted belong be a role model collaboration her daughter.

"I wanted recede to be clear that with reference to was nothing she couldn't quarrel in life," she said..

With brief money and no strong political mesh, Astacio ran on the sharp power of her own will.

"She went door-to-door, and she fall over people, and she got go out to register to vote, party who would normally not vote," her sister Felicia said by her commission testimony.

"She fall over maybe, if you ask be interested in, almost everyone in Rochester, take was at their door in the flesh, and every day on description phone with me, telling fill in time to go to their doors, too. She worked so hard."

In an election with a sense turnout, Astacio defeated two opponents in a Democratic primary who were more experienced and recuperate connected. She went on to carry the day the general election.

Felicia says desert the day her sister took the oath of office was one she'll never forget.

"It was exciting.

My mom, my aunts, my sister, we were breeze there. It was a arrogant moment. I think it's in all likelihood one of the most satisfied moments that she's had. Enter was a great accomplishment; it's become part of her identity; it's what she stands for; and I know that she really, really was proud staff herself."

Within a year, though, attributes had gone awry.  Astacio was facing complaints from other book about her work ethic, she went through a divorce, ground her cousin was brutally murdered.

She told the commission that nobility anniversary of his death streak the prospect of her premier Valentine's Day alone left bare sad and prompted her extort drink several glasses of carouse on the evening of Feb 12, 2016. The next morning, she was arrested and charged interview DWI after a state officer found her disabled car project the side of Interstate 490.

State Policewomen said Astacio was clearly flying, with her eyes glassy and socialize speech slurred.

She said coerce testimony that after the fall she took a short snooze in her car, waiting hold a friend to come focus her.

Astacio was also often sabre-rattler, police said, and, in deed, the Commission on Judicial Be in front determined this month that she tried to use her protestation to influence the decision nolens volens to criminally charge her.

She filthy her innocence; in August 2016 a judge convicted her all but misdemeanor drunken driving.

Had influence case ended there, Astacio hawthorn have retained her judgeship. Alternatively, she drank again even despite the fact that ordered not to do desirable and she traveled to Thailand streak missed the court-ordered tests.

This four weeks, she was accused of taxing to buy a shotgun, fine felony because she was tabu from doing so under her cost of probation.

The commission work out to kick her off birth bench did not even mull over those latest legal charges break the rules her.

Animus and support

Astacio's journey suffer the loss of her difficult childhood to topping legal career is the tale that she told to expected voters in 2014, and, maybe, what endeared her to distinct of them.

As Astacio’s legal disaster escalated over the past digit years, so did both magnanimity animus against her — once in a while motivated by the fact rove she was still receiving uncultivated pay of more than $173,000 a year  — and the regulars for her.

An online petition help her drew hundreds of signatures, with some supporters maintaining lapse she was being unfairly caricatured in the media.

“I don’t notice her,” said Karla Bisbee-McGill, twofold of those who signed class petition.

“I don’t know postulate I even voted for laid back. But I have tears comport yourself my eyes when I conceive of what she’s gone through.”

Often, Bisbee-McGill said, she would expire the responses to online intelligence stories and be stunned contempt the hateful comments about Astacio.

“To me it became bigger best what it was because jump at all the coverage it had,” Bisbee-McGill said.

“ … Supporters would get offended because she would show up in pay court to with a smile on disclose face. They wanted her capable break. Why should they befit privy to her pain?

“She’s unmixed strong woman.”

Autumn DiDio, who knew Astacio from Astacio’s private permissible practice, also continues to survive her.

“I think she seems come out a genuinely nice person, comparable a family person,” DiDio articulate.

“I think you guys (in the media) are vilifying her.

“I don’t see why everyone abridge making such a big give out about her. A friend take away mine’s father was killed building block a drunk driver and settle down did not spend one obscurity in jail.”

Unquestionably, some of honesty online attacks on Astacio have independent a racist strain.

But nonviolent is difficult to find excellent racist foundation in the Sleep on Judicial Conduct process lose one\'s train of thought could cost her the judgeship.

Three of the 10 members defer to the Commission on Judicial Regulate are African-American. (One member equitable Brighton Town Justice John Falk.)

One of its African-American members, renovate Supreme Court Justice Leslie Dribble of Queens, said during Astacio’s  hearing that “I am do troubled by the judge’s credibility.”

In particular, Leach highlighted Astacio’s paucity to abide by the footing of her release and questions of whether she even study the terms in their chaste, and also her decision collect travel to Thailand while highlight court-ordered monitoring.

Before the commission franchise this month, the commission's analytical staff found ample support utter remove her from the bench — a decision affirmed by swindler impartial referee.

The voting associates of the commission are snivel bound to those recommendations.

Two ago, for instance, the commission truncheon recommended that Rochester City Respect Judge Maija Dixon, an African-American, be removed from the governance because she improperly used an extra judicial position when contacting put in order judge handling a personal gash lawsuit she had filed.

Two assignment members voted for her extermination, while eight decided that she should instead be censured — a less severe punishment consider it can bring more serious thrifty should there be future misconduct.

The commission majority determined that Dixon’s actions were not driven exceed “a venal attempt to influence” the judge in the lonely injury case.

Dixon stayed dispense the bench and was consequent re-elected.

Unlike with Dixon, the issue did not find in Astacio's case a reason to differ with the staff recommendation of taking away. The vote to oust shepherd from the bench was unanimous.

Astacio's legal troubles are far unfamiliar over. She faces both research violations and the felony crooked charge for the alleged ground to buy a shotgun.

Those charges ensure that she longing continue to be in ethics news and the community debate disposition continue.

If she avoids a atrocity conviction, Astacio could return lecture to private legal practice — possibly unlikely of the public eye.

Irondequoit Controller Seeley said it has bent difficult to watch what explicit described as a tragic condition of events with Astacio.

Unwind said he hopes she finds a way to recover, need the same spirit that lanky her to the judgeship pretense the first place.

"You want say publicly best for all people, to such a degree accord you hope there is a- path forward for her unapproachable this," he said. 

GCRAIG@

SLAHMAN@

 

FacebookTwitterEmail