Advocates urge Hochul, Mamdani to deny 'vindictive' Bronx judge more time on bench

For more than 15 years, prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Bronx have filed complaints describing Judge Ralph Fabrizio as volatile, abusive and unfit to serve, according to news reports. He has never faced public discipline.

Now, with Fabrizio's term expiring and a potential state Supreme Court appointment on the table, one reform group is urging Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Gov. Kathy Hochul to deny him any more time on the bench.

In 18-page letters sent to Mamdani and Hochul, and shared exclusively with Gothamist ahead of broader release, the nonprofit Center for Community Alternatives argued Fabrizio’s record — including appellate reversals, formal complaints and numerous reported courtroom clashes — should disqualify him from either reappointment by the mayor or elevation by the governor to a formal Supreme Court seat.

The center cited examples of what it described as erratic decision-making as well as the judge lashing out at defense attorneys, prosecutors and defendants.

Fabrizio has served on New York City Criminal Court since 2001 and has been designated an acting Supreme Court justice in the Bronx for more than a decade. His current term expires this year.

The judge hasn’t returned multiple calls to his chambers to ask if he plans to seek reappointment through the mayor, and to ask him to address the concerns in the letter. It’s also unclear if he’s eligible: Public records indicate Fabrizio is 69, which means he may reach mandatory retirement this year. But if Hochul nominates Fabrizio to the Supreme Court, he would be eligible to serve up to an additional six years past that court’s retirement age of 70.

“What we tried to document here is all the records of Judge Fabrizio being volatile, vindictive, erratic and other things that are in violation of New York's rules of judicial conduct,” said Peter Martin, the director for the center’s Judicial Accountability Project.

The letter compiles appellate reversals, court transcripts, survey responses and press coverage of internal complaints dating back more than 15 years. It also includes quotes from anonymous defense attorneys criticizing the judge, gathered by the center through a 2025 survey soliciting feedback on specific judges including Fabrizio. Those attorneys described unpredictable screaming and cruelty by Fabrizio in court.

Fabrizio has been the subject of media reports in past years, in which both named and unnamed sources including prosecutors and defense attorneys, questioned his fitness for office. In one 2023 episode, described in reports by New York Focus and The City and recounted in the letter along with court transcripts, Fabrizio became increasingly angry at a defense attorney who had been newly assigned to a case.

The attorney had requested more time before the start of the trial — for an alleged Hells Angels member charged in a shooting — on the grounds that she had not yet received all of the discovery she’d requested. At first, Fabrizio seemed understanding, saying he didn’t want to prejudice the case against the defendant. However, as the hearing progressed, his “attitude changed,” according to the letter.

In the transcripts provided, the judge complained about repeated delays. He then threatened to shoot down a different motion by attorney Stacey Richman about evidence in the case, without getting into the merits. And then he told her: “You know something? You are relieved. … You cannot go forward on this case. We need somebody who is going to be ready.”

But moments later, any notion she was “relieved” was apparently put aside when the judge told her not to take on other matters and scheduled a date for the next hearing.

Richman, the attorney, did not respond to a request for an interview.

The letter also incorporates fresh material, including excerpts from cases with identifying information redacted.

In one of those cases, during a sentencing hearing, defense attorneys moved to enter mitigating evidence into the record, including about their client’s mental health issues. The letter doesn’t specify what crime the man had been convicted of.

The judge said such evidence “did nothing to correct” the man’s criminal record, according to the letter.

“There is nothing redeeming that I find in anything I’ve read about you,” Fabrizio told the defendant, according to the letter. “You are beyond redemption. You are beyond rehabilitation. You are beyond any hope of leading a life that is not a danger to anybody else. … I don’t see any reason to give you any further leniency, any further mercy, any further exercise of my discretion.”

Fabrizio ordered the maximum sentence, according to the letter, which described the judge’s remarks as a “hyper-moralizing invective.”

New York’s rules of judicial conduct require judges to show respect toward everyone who appears in their court. Martin called this one of many examples of Fabrizio being “wildly disrespectful of litigants and attorneys.”

In another case described in the letter — and not previously covered in news media — Fabrizio initially granted an application to restore a case to its pre-plea status, essentially rolling back a conviction from years earlier. The letter did not identify the defendant or the charges.

But it described the hearing becoming contentious after Fabrizio's realization that the prosecution and defense agreed to a new plea deal rather than to proceed to a new trial.

When the defense attorney explained they had come with the understanding there would be a new plea, Fabrizio rejected the characterization and accused the defense of seeking different relief than what they had originally requested.

After more back and forth, the judge reversed his own ruling and directed the defense to file additional motion papers — effectively reinstating the conviction he had just said he’d vacate.

This is not the only time Fabrizio has reversed himself in quick succession.

The letter also cited the 2023 case of Norberto Peets, who had served more than 25 years in prison, convicted of attempted murder and other charges. But a new investigation by his attorneys and the Bronx district attorney found serious failures by his original attorney. At the urging of prosecutors and the defense, Fabrizio threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial, and Peets was released from prison.

But weeks later, the DA’s office notified the judge it would not be pursuing a new trial, citing “major problems in the prosecution's case.” Fabrizio, in response, reversed himself and reinstated the original conviction. The City, which first reported on the matter, noted that legal experts found such a move was “almost unheard of.”

Fabrizio, according to the letter, said his original decision to clear Peets was “made based on errors of and omissions of fact” and accused the DA of omitting information. Peets’ attorneys petitioned the appellate division to intervene, but ultimately that was unnecessary.

Yet months later, after The City’s inquiries to the judge about the reversal, Fabrizio suddenly reversed himself a third time. The City reported at the time that Fabrizio didn’t answer its questions, and dismissed the case in a hearing that lasted about a minute.

“A  person's freedom is obviously very important and decisions about freedom need to be taken very seriously,” Martin said. “So for a judge to receive what amounts to an exoneration petition, rule in favor of the exoneration and then reverse his own judgment on that shows, as we write in our letter, either his own legal reasoning and judgment is unreliable … or he responds to public scrutiny and public pressure in a way that no judge should.”

Despite past reports of multiple complaints to various offices, including the Bronx DA, the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary and the Commission on Judicial Conduct describing the judge as “verbally abusive” and “being prone to being erratic” — all detailed in the letter — there’s no evidence of public reprimand.

The New York state Commission on Judicial Conduct’s records, accessible through its website, do not indicate any public disciplinary action against Fabrizio.

While previous reporting by The City found the Office of Court Administration’s Inspector General may have launched an investigation into the judge, citing one public defender’s meeting with an investigator, there’s no indication anything came of it. When asked about that reporting, OCA spokesperson Al Baker said the court system “trusts that, should Judge Fabrizio seek reappointment as a New York City Criminal Court judge, the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary will thoroughly and fairly evaluate his long and productive career on the bench.”

This marks the Center for Community Alternatives' fifth campaign targeting a judge up for reappointment or elevation. In two of those previous cases, judges did not receive new appointments.

The Mamdani administration did not respond to a request for comment about the campaign or how it will handle these sorts of issues in the future. Neither did the governor’s office.

Early indications from the Mamdani administration, including civil rights attorney Ali Najmi's appointment to lead the mayor’s judicial advisory committee, have left Martin optimistic that the administration "will take this and other decisions around judicial selection as seriously as we want them to," he said.

“ Elected officials with responsibilities in the judicial selection process need to take those responsibilities very seriously,” Martin added. “And they need to not just rubber-stamp judges to new terms as they have done far too often.”