Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Katherine Levine spent nearly two years contesting three sanitation violations, repeatedly invoking her judicial position while trying to avoid hearings and fines totaling as little as $150, according to a state judicial ethics ruling.
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct admonished Levine after she spent 20 months fighting the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings over minor trash-related summonses, the commission said in a Monday release.
The commission determined that Levine’s “unnecessary and repeated references to her judicial office created the appearance that she was inappropriately seeking special treatment.”
“Invoking judicial office to avoid paying a fine undermines public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and suggests that judges are exempt from rules that apply to everyone else,” commission administrator Robert Tembeckjian said.
“The Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings was right not to give special treatment to a judge, and Judge Levine accepted responsibility for her conduct by agreeing an admonition was appropriate,” he added.
Investigators found that Levine referred to her title or judicial status on at least eight occasions while attempting to resolve the violations.
The dispute began in March 2024, when sanitation workers found a “large accumulation” of napkins, papers, egg cartons and other refuse in the driveway of Levine’s Borough Park home, where she has lived since 1996, according to records.
Rather than pay the $50 mail-in fine, Levine pleaded not guilty through an online submission and highlighted her position on the bench.
“i plead not guilty,” she wrote 10 days later. “I am a supreme Court Justice in Kings County and went to work at 10 am.”
OATH found her responsible for the violation, but she did not pay the fine, the Commission on Judicial Conduct said.
The following spring, Levine received two additional summonses for failing to keep lids on her garbage containers, OATH records show.
She did not respond to those tickets until the following fall.
In an October 2025 voicemail to the administrative court, Levine referred to her position at least twice, according to the commission. Among her comments were, “Hi this is Judge Katherine Levine,” and, “I have trials every day in Supreme Court.”
Levine repeatedly argued that, as “a supreme court justice with trials,” she could not spend an entire day at OATH for a hearing, the panel said.
“I cannot come down and sit in OATH for 10 hours as I am a trial judge in Supreme Court,” she wrote in a message from her official judicial email. She also sought to resolve the matter by paying the balance, which had grown to $650 from the original $50 fine after she missed multiple hearings.
In another exchange, Levine wrote: “I am a supreme court justice and I vacate default judgments all the time in the name of equity and justice.”
OATH told her that it does not negotiate settlements and that she, like everyone else, “must follow OATH rules and protocols.”
Levine then asked to speak with an OATH supervisor and ended an email with the all-caps question: “HOW DO I PAY IT AND HOW MUCH IS IT.”
Levine, who has served as a judge since 2008 and had no prior disciplinary history, “openly and repeatedly expressed her remorse and embarrassment” and agreed to the commission’s admonition.
“Further, respondent recognizes that the gratuitous invocation of her judicial title was reasonably perceived at OATH as an attempt for a favorable adjudication of her summonses,” the commission said.
Her attorney, David Godosky, said Levine “regrets that she referenced her position while addressing a frustrating issue with a city agency” and described her as “candid and cooperative.”
OATH records show that the fines were ultimately paid.
