Brooklyn Judge Could Ditch Ankle Bracelet as Credit Union Investigation Unfolds

Prosecutors have agreed to a request by Sylvia Ash, the presiding judge of the Kings County Supreme Court, commercial division, to remove a GPS monitoring bracelet in exchange for increased bond, as she awaits trial on federal charges of obstructing an investigation into a state-chartered credit union whose board she used to chair.

Ash’s attorney, G. Michael Bellinger, said in a letter Friday that his client would up her bond to $750,000 and find an additional co-signor to secure the amount. Neither the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York nor her pretrial services officer had opposed the motion, he said.

Ash was released Oct. 11 on $500,000 bond and ordered not to leave Manhattan and Brooklyn ahead of a planned trial in May. Initially charged in October, prosecutors in the Southern District filed a superseding indictment last month charging Ash with conspiracy and two counts of obstructing justice.

Ash, who pleaded not guilty, has been suspended from her post by the New York Court of Appeals, pending the resolution of her criminal case.

The indictment alleges that Ash tried to cover up financial wrongdoing by Kam Wong, the former president and CEO of Municipal Credit Union, the oldest credit union in New York City. According to prosecutors, Ash later wiped text messages from her phone and lied to investigators looking into Wong’s conduct.

Wong pleaded guilty last year to embezzling millions of dollars from MCU, and was sentenced to 66 months in prison.

At her arraignment in October, assistant U.S. attorney Eli Mark said that authorities had not been able to find Ash when they first tried to arrest her. Her former attorney, Roger Archibald, told prosecutors that Ash was in Africa at the time, when in fact she had been visiting family in Florida. She was arrested the next day at LaGuardia Airport after disembarking from her return flight.

Archibald asked U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York in November to wipe out Ash’s $500,000 bail bond and to allow the removal of her electronic tracking bracelet. Ash has since hired Bellinger, a litigation partner with Carter Ledyard & Milburn, to take over the case.

In his letter, Bellinger said the agreement to remove the bracelet was “consistent with the objectives of the Bail Reform Act,” which requires that defendants be released on the “least restrictive” conditions to ensure public safety and their appearance in court.

“We respectfully request that the court grant that modification and order the removal of her electronic monitoring bracelet upon the signing of the new bond and filing of an amended confession of judgment,” he wrote in the one-page missive.

Kaplan had not yet ruled on the request as of Friday evening.