LUTHMANN NOTE: Sherri Eisenpress didn’t retire. She ran. She fled the bench before sunlight could finish the job. For decades, families walked into her courtroom and walked out broken, stripped of rights by a judge serving friendships, fundraisers, and favors instead of the law. The system knew. The watchdogs knew. And they did nothing until exposure made silence impossible. Eisenpress is not an outlier. She is the product of judicial immunity run amok. That’s why Manny Gomez’s Truthfulness in Decisions Act matters. End absolute immunity. End untouchable judges. End the lie that robes equal virtue. Accountability is not radical. It’s overdue. This piece is “Disgraced Judge Eisenpress Quits,” first available on TheFamilyCourtCircus.com.
By Richard Luthmann and Rick LaRivière
A Judge Retires Under a Cloud of Corruption
(Rockland County, New York) – She turned the Rockland County Family Court into a slaughterhouse, dismembering families piece by piece over a span of decades.
Justice Sherri L. Eisenpress is stepping down in disgrace – a New York State Supreme Court judge fleeing the bench under a cloud of misconduct. The Commission on Judicial Conduct charged her with egregious ethics breaches, forcing her to agree to retire in April 2026 rather than face a public trial.
Eisenpress partied and vacationed with lawyers who had cases before her, flouting the basic duty of impartiality. A state investigation found she took at least six luxury trips to the Dominican Republic and Mexico with a clique of attorneys and court staff – all while presiding over those attorneys’ cases.
On a group chat aptly named “Punta Cana Partiers,” the judge and her cronies shared “gossip, memes… off-color jokes, and sexually graphic images,” cozy as college pals. Eisenpress never disclosed these friendships to opposing litigants, never recused herself, and instead ruled on dozens of cases involving her buddies.
The commission’s administrator, Robert Tembeckjian, said it plainly: “For the public to have confidence in the courts, judges must be and appear to be impartial. That means stepping aside from cases where they have clear conflicts.”
But what is required for the public to have confidence in the commission? More on that below.
For years, Eisenpress did the opposite of instill institutional confidence. She entangled herself and the NYS Courts in conflicts of interest so flagrant that her courtroom became a private playground for favored insiders. She now exits with a token resignation stipulation that pretends nothing was admitted, but the stench of her misconduct will linger over Rockland County’s courts for a long time.
Disgraced Judge Eisenpress Quits: Conflicts, Cronies, and Ex Parte Dealings
Eisenpress’s tenure was defined by blatant favoritism and backdoor dealing. From 2019 to 2024, she presided over 55 cases involving attorneys she was “acquainted and friendly” with – and never once told the other side or stepped aside.
In 41 more cases, the judge failed to disclose that her own principal law clerk’s husband’s law firm was involved.
Instead of recusing or even insulating her staff, she carried on and let potential conflicts slide. Her social ties weren’t innocent friendships – they translated into courtroom bias. Eisenpress was even caught presiding over a case in which one lawyer had co-hosted a fundraiser for her campaign; unsurprisingly, she ruled in favor of that lawyer’s client. Only when opposing counsel formally objected did she belatedly recuse herself, long after the damage was done.
Such ex parte cozying-up wasn’t limited to social trips and fundraisers. In one outrageous example, a litigant revealed that Eisenpress’s law clerk took an ex parte phone call on a weekend from an attorney seeking to drop a restraining order against an abusive husband – and the judge did it without even notifying the wife.
“Opposing counsel… had requested an (ex parte) phone call to [Eisenpress’s] Law Clerk… to have the [order] removed… without my knowledge,” the wife’s grievance states.
Questions now linger whether sitting Rockland County Justice Andrea F. Composto, an Eisenpress friend and associate who inherited many of her cases, should also face judicial discipline.
Secret communications, undisclosed relationships, off-the-record favors – this was Eisenpress’s modus operandi. The judge abused litigants from the bench with biased decisions born of conflicts and backroom deals. Her courtroom wasn’t neutral ground; it was rigged.
Disgraced Judge Eisenpress Quits: Bribery, Bias, and a Family Destroyed
No case illustrates Eisenpress’s corruption better than the Fogarty v. Fogarty divorce fiasco. Sai Malena Jimenez-Fogarty – a Rockland mother – claims Judge Eisenpress effectively sold her out in her custody battle. According to filings, Eisenpress’s friend and frequent travel companion, attorney Lisa Zeiderman, hosted a campaign fundraiser at her own home for the judge in May 2022. Zeiderman represented Jimenez-Fogarty’s ex-husband at the time.
Eisenpress accepted a $2,500 donation from Zeiderman’s firm on May 16, 2022. The very next day, with no motion pending, Judge Eisenpress abruptly granted sole legal and physical custody of the children to Zeiderman’s client – the ex-husband. This sneak attack custody order, issued without a hearing, reeks of pay-to-play.
“Judge Eisenpress’ blatant misconduct rendered the case fundamentally unfair… [She] received donations for a campaign fundraiser hosted by [opposing counsel] during the proceedings of my case, which influenced [her] decision-making,” Jimenez-Fogarty wrote in her grievance.
The judge was so brazen that she didn’t even read the court-ordered supervision reports detailing the father’s alcohol abuse and child mistreatment. After these bombshell allegations emerged, Eisenpress hurriedly recused herself in May 2022, but it was too late – the damage to Jimenez-Fogarty and her children was done.
Worse, the case then passed to Judge Thomas Zugibe, who, according to Jimenez-Fogarty, picked up right where Eisenpress left off. Zugibe is accused of retaliating against the mother for exposing Eisenpress, dismissing evidence that the children were in danger, and even holding a custody trial without the mother present. He allegedly engaged in his own ex parte communications to ram through a predetermined outcome.
In short, one judge’s corruption and bias simply continued under another robed enabler.
“When Judge Eisenpress took Ms. Fogarty’s children, her company, and everything she owned, it wasn’t just an injustice – it was corruption in its purest form,” says private investigator Manuel Gomez, who has amassed over 300 pages of evidence in this case. “We have evidence of political donations made to the judge right after her rulings. The receipts don’t lie.”
This family’s destruction has become a rallying cry and a case study in how a judge’s bias and bribery can eviscerate lives. Jimenez-Fogarty’s fight has now exploded into federal court as a landmark civil rights and RICO action – a desperate bid for justice that New York’s broken family courts failed to provide.
Disgraced Judge Eisenpress Quits: Enablers on the Bench and Beyond
How did Sherri Eisenpress get away with this for so long? Look no further than the so-called watchdogs who turned a blind eye. The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, led by Administrator Robert Tembeckjian, knew of Eisenpress’s antics for years and did little until the outrage became impossible to ignore.
Complaints and grievances against Eisenpress piled up since at least 2021, yet she remained on the bench issuing tainted decisions. Only after Jimenez-Fogarty’s explosive grievance hit the press – and a federal RICO lawsuit loomed – did the Commission finally act in late 2025. Even then, they handed Eisenpress a velvet escape: no admission of wrongdoing, just a quiet agreement to retire at the end of April 2026.
Tembeckjian crowed that her departure was “appropriate” given the “serious” allegations, but the truth is the Commission enabled this rogue judge for years. Rather than remove Eisenpress earlier or alert higher authorities, the Commission allowed her misconduct to fester, shielding the judiciary’s reputation at the expense of abused litigants.
At one point, under pressure, officials merely reassigned Eisenpress to a different court – a meek slap on the wrist that outraged those following the case.
“She’s still on the bench… This isn’t justice – it’s a slap on the wrist,” Gomez said at the time, as Eisenpress was quietly demoted but not fired.
Even now, by letting her resign without a formal verdict on the record, Tembeckjian and his Commission colleagues have once again put damage control over true accountability. The judicial conduct system that is supposed to protect the public instead protected one of its own.
It’s a stark illustration of a broader problem: the family court system’s watchdogs often serve as lapdogs, enabling corrupt judges by sweeping misconduct under the rug until the scandal boils over.
Disgraced Judge Eisenpress Quits: Reform and Accountability Means Ending Judicial Immunity
Eisenpress’s downfall must be more than a solitary scandal – it should be a catalyst for urgent reform. The rot in New York’s family courts won’t be cured just by one judge’s retirement. Real change means ending the unchecked power and immunity that emboldened Eisenpress and others like her.
Private investigator Manuel Gomez, a relentless corruption fighter, is championing the Truthfulness in Decisions Act as a serious solution. This proposed law would strip judges of absolute immunity when they knowingly violate litigants’ rights or commit fraud from the bench.
“Judges are supposed to uphold the law, not break it,” Gomez, a U.S. military veteran, says bluntly.
His legislation demands accountability, transparency, and consequences for those in robes who abuse their power.
“Judges like Eisenpress shouldn’t be above the law,” he emphasizes.
If passed, the act would allow victims of judicial misconduct to sue and seek real justice, tearing down the shield that corrupt judges hide behind. The idea is gaining traction among fed-up parents and ethical attorneys alike.
Civil rights lawyer Tricia Lindsay – counsel for Jimenez-Fogarty in her federal case – stands as another credible defender pushing back in court, refusing to let Eisenpress’s misdeeds go unchallenged.
The call to action now is for every litigant harmed by Judge Eisenpress’s rulings to come forward. She left behind a trail of at least 90 cases rife with potential injustice – each one a family possibly robbed of a fair outcome by her bias. Those families must demand their cases be reviewed, their improper orders vacated, and their grievances heard anew.
No one should accept a tainted decision as final when it was born of corruption.
The curtain has been pulled back on Judge Eisenpress’s court, revealing a judicial slaughterhouse where families were ground up for personal profit and favoritism. The time for silence is over.
Rockland County parents and others abused in Eisenpress’s courtroom are uniting with advocates like Gomez and Lindsay to insist on oversight and honest adjudication. This scandal is a watershed moment – a chance to finally force change in a system that has allowed unethical judges to torment families with impunity.
The message is clear: crooked judges beware. The public is awake, reform is coming, and no corrupt court actor – from Sherri Eisenpress on down – should sleep easy. The fight to reclaim our family courts has only just begun.
