Brooklyn's Democratic Party leaders and their allies collected roughly $190,000 from more than 90 judges and judicial candidates over the past decade, a pattern government watchdogs say amounts to a pay-to-play pipeline that corrodes public trust in the courts.
Campaign finance records reviewed by the New York Post trace the money flow back to 2012, when former Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman Frank Seddio took control of the local committee. Since then, judges and judicial candidates have funneled contributions through event tickets, club dues, and payments filed as "petition expenses", all while depending on those same party leaders for the nominations that put them on the bench.
The current party chair, Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, categorically denied that donations played any role in the county's endorsement decisions and insisted she followed all relevant campaign finance laws. Seddio, for his part, said he bases judicial endorsements on "qualification, responsibility and competency." Neither explanation satisfies the watchdog groups now calling for an outside investigation.
Bichotte-Hermelyn's Shirley Chisholm Democratic Club alone collected more than $53,000 from 24 judges and judicial candidates since 2013. The bulk of those payments were filed as "petition expenses", yet the filings lacked any corresponding expense information showing the candidates only paid their fair share of actual costs. That gap matters. Without documentation, the payments look less like shared logistics and more like a cover charge for party access.
Two other political clubs tied to the Brooklyn machine, the Thomas Jefferson Club and the Seneca Club, are not even registered as political committees, raising a separate question about whether they face any campaign finance reporting requirements at all.
New York State rules cap what judges and judicial candidates can spend on political events: a maximum of two tickets at the lowest available price, no more than $250 per ticket. Sitting judges running for county seats can unlock a broader spending window by filing a "public declaration", essentially a letter to the state's chief administrative judge, that authorizes political activity within nine months before a primary or nominating event and six months after the election.
But critics say the declaration system has become a loophole. Judges who repeatedly declare candidacy can effectively keep the donation window open year after year, making the restrictions meaningless.
Ben Weinberg, public policy director at Citizens Union, a government watchdog group, laid out the problem in blunt terms:
"The whole purpose of limiting the window in which judicial candidates can actively campaign is to keep their political and fundraising activity to a bare minimum, walling them off from partisan politics. Finding workarounds to effectively campaign every year and continuously donate to politicians makes these restrictions moot."
Weinberg went further, warning that the pattern threatens the independence of the courts themselves:
"The public's confidence in the courts is undermined when judges appear dependent on party organizations for political support, endorsements, or advancement."
He called for a wider investigation and suggested the situation may warrant appointment of a special prosecutor, a sign that at least some reform advocates believe existing oversight bodies are not up to the task.
The agencies responsible for policing judicial conduct and campaign finance offered little reassurance. The New York State Board of Elections did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Commission for Judicial Conduct also declined to comment, but asked for a copy of the information the Post had assembled. That a state watchdog body wanted a newspaper's research files, rather than producing its own, speaks to the state of oversight in New York.
The Office of Court Administration, which speaks for judges statewide, said the donations in question were authorized under applicable time frames. But when the Post requested a list of those authorizations, the office did not provide one.
A 2023 memo from Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas had already flagged the issue from a different angle. That memo warned judges about donations related to federal political contributions, and nearly 50 judges were cautioned as a result. The scope of the Brooklyn scheme, spanning state-level party politics rather than federal races, suggests the problem runs deeper than one memo can fix.
Seddio's role as the architect of the Brooklyn machine's judicial pipeline is complicated by his own legal exposure. He faces several lawsuits accusing him of defrauding investors of millions of dollars. Those cases are separate from the donation controversy, but they add context to the character of the man who built the system now under scrutiny.
His defense of the judicial endorsement process was carefully worded. Seddio told the Post:
"I seek qualification, responsibility and competency in my determination as to who would serve as a good judge. I'd like to think those candidates that I have supported in the past or appear to have met and now serve with that qualifying commitment of good service."
That statement does not deny the donations happened. It does not explain why more than 90 judges and candidates felt compelled to write checks to party-linked organizations. And it does not address the missing expense documentation or the unregistered clubs collecting money outside the campaign finance system.
Alex Camarda, senior policy adviser at Reinvent Albany, a government reform group, pointed to the root cause: an enforcement vacuum.
"Only the Board of Elections' longstanding meek enforcement lets judges, judicial candidates and political clubs ignore basic campaign finance rules."
That assessment is hard to argue with when the Board of Elections will not even return a reporter's calls, the court system will not release its own authorization records, and the Commission for Judicial Conduct is asking a newspaper for homework help.
Several questions remain unanswered. No formal investigation has been announced. No special prosecutor has been requested or appointed. The full list of which judges gave how much, and to which clubs, has not been made public. And the extent of payments flowing through unregistered political clubs, beyond what campaign finance filings capture, is unknown.
What is known is the basic architecture: party bosses control judicial nominations, judges and candidates pay party-linked organizations for access, and the agencies tasked with oversight either look the other way or lack the will to act.
When the people who pick your judges are the same people collecting checks from the candidates, the word for that is not "politics." It is a system that answers to the machine first and the public never.
