New York Courts Judicial Pinball
Luthmann’s $86K fee fight ricochets across seven judges, Manhattan Pols.
LUTHMANN NOTE: This was never about the money. If it were, I would have taken fifteen cents on the dollar in 2022 and moved on. This is about whether political insiders can stiff a lawyer, flex their connections, and then hide behind robes and party machinery when the bill comes due. Seven judges. Years of delay. Zero discovery. That is not random. That is judicial pinball. One judge had the integrity to step aside. The rest have let the case drift. I want depositions. I want sworn testimony. I want sunlight. If the courts are clean, they should welcome it. This piece is “New York Courts Judicial Pinball,” first available on NYNewsPress.com.
By Rick LaRiviere and Richard Luthmann
A Case No Judge Wants to Touch
(NEW YORK, NEW YORK) - Richard Luthmann isn’t just fighting for a nearly decade-old $86,000 legal bill – he’s fighting the New York judiciary itself. The disbarred attorney (notorious for once demanding “trial by combat” in court) claims New York City Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks and her husband, Kevin Barry Love, stiffed him on fees for work he did back in 2017. He filed a lawsuit to collect, but what should have been a routine contract case has turned into a wild game of judicial pinball.
The case Luthmann v. Hanks et al. (Index No. 100012/2024) has ricocheted across multiple judges, each seemingly eager to hand it off. Almost three years of “procedural ping-pong” – transfers, reassignments, unexplained delays – saw Luthmann’s lawsuit “bounced around New York County like a hot potato nobody wanted to touch.”
Why the hesitation? On paper, this case is a garden-variety collection action. Legal services were performed. Bills were issued. Payment was not made. In 2022, Luthmann even retained a collections attorney who was prepared to settle for roughly 15 to 20 cents on the dollar — a discount most debtors would jump at to close the file and move on. It could have ended quietly.
Instead, Hanks’ unelected husband, Kevin Barry Love, chose confrontation over resolution. According to tapes, Love tried to play tough guy, issuing threats, flexing political connections, and attempting to scare off counsel rather than negotiate.
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Luthmann says that tactic is not new — that Love’s pattern is escalation, not settlement; intimidation, not compromise. Just last year, Love threatened Muslim voters and community activists in connection with Kamillah Hanks’ re-election campaign. Hanks’ treatment of Muslims generally, and Muslim staffers in particular, drew ire from across the religious community.
What might have been resolved for pennies became a principled standoff. Now Luthmann demands 100 cents plus statutory interest, and on-the-record video depositions.
The case carries political consequences far beyond the balance sheet because of who he’s suing and what he’s exposing. Beyond the headline defendants — Justice Ronald Castorina Jr., Council Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks, and Kevin Barry Love — the complaint names a sprawling cast of political players whose careers intersected with political campaigns from 2013 to 2017.
It includes Diane Savino, former State Senator and former senior advisor to the now-departed Mayor Eric Adams; consultants Scott Levenson and Michael J. Cox; former NYC Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli; former Staten Island Democratic Party Chair John Gulino; NYC Board of Elections Executive Director Michael J. Ryan; election lawyer Howard Graubard; former Councilmember Debi Rose; and former Councilman Sal Albanese.
It names attorneys Sean O’Sullivan, Manuel Ortega, Bruce Baron, and election law heavyweight John Ciampoli. It references former union boss Dennis Quirk, media personality and two-time NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, Council Member Frank Morano, and media figure John Tobacco, along with campaign insiders Lok Yung, Priscilla Marco, and Jason Reynard.
It pulls in Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon, his newly retired wife, former judge Judy McMahon, special prosecutor Eric Nelson, disbarred attorney Perry Reich, and U.S. Probation Officer Katrina Harmaty.
It names attorney and former GOP assembly candidate Janine Materna, 2017 Hanks ballot challenger Phil Marius, Republican committee member Joseph Pidoriano, and investigative journalist Frank Parlato.
The complaint does not read like a billing ledger. It reads like a political directory — entered into court under oath. This is no ordinary debt collection case – it’s a political powder keg.
New York Courts Judicial Pinball: Conflicts, Cover-Ups, and Courtroom Drama
The cast of characters in Luthmann’s lawsuit – consultants, party chairs, election lawyers, prosecutors, media figures, and operatives – are listed as fact witnesses to the core issues: that Luthmann performed ballot access litigation, petition challenges, campaign strategy, legal objections, and other work in 2017 and prior; that the services were rendered and relied upon; that campaign insiders discussed payment; and that the relationship later fractured amid political fallout.
They are witnesses to the debts themselves, to the “off-book” fee discussions, to the post-campaign rupture, and to what Luthmann calls his tortured collection efforts — including alleged threats, pressure tactics, and efforts to discredit him rather than resolve the bill. In his telling, they saw the work, they saw the promises, and they saw what happened when the bills came due.
In court filings, Hanks admitted she and Love used Luthmann to create a fake Facebook page to smear her political rival during the 2017 campaign. She also admits she used Luthmann’s legal work to knock a challenger off the ballot, then never paid the $86,000 bill.
These are Hanks’s own sworn admissions – political dirty laundry aired in black and white.
Love’s behavior is even more outrageous: Luthmann calls him a “straight up thug” who threatened Luthmann’s attorneys over state lines, vowing to ruin their law careers and “unleash the FBI and DOJ” if they dared help Luthmann collect the debt. According to Luthmann, Love even leveraged Hanks’s clout to spook a federal probation officer into harassing Luthmann while he was on supervised release – effectively weaponizing the justice system against him.
All of this, Luthmann says, was part of a cover-up to keep him quiet and avoid paying what’s owed. Little wonder the defendants are desperate to quash the case with early motions to dismiss.
The real question is: can Luthmann get a fair shake when the deck is so stacked? At least one judge showed some spine: Justice Brendan Lantry, upon being assigned, quickly bowed out.
“My impartiality may be questioned due to my personal relationship with several parties… Accordingly, I am recusing myself,” Lantry wrote, filing his recusal order sua sponte without waiting for anyone to ask.
His swift exit was a rare act of judicial integrity – and a stark contrast to the silence of others. As Luthmann’s claims swirl with allegations of threats, lies, and corruption, New York’s courts seem afraid to even let this case reach first base. Will it ever get past the starter gate of discovery? Or will the game of judicial musical chairs continue until someone finally pulls the plug?
Luthmann’s case began procedurally as a paper filing in November 2023, with Justice Margaret A. Chan handling early motion practice in spring 2024. She signed a “no-fee” order extending Castorina’s time to respond/move, tied to an April 2024 ex parte motion. By late summer/early fall 2024, non-retired Justice Louis L. Nock is the judge hearing the big threshold fight with oral argument on multiple motions to dismiss held in September 2024.
At one point in early 2025, the case briefly passed through the inventory of Justice Kathleen Waterman Marshall — the same Manhattan jurist Luthmann has publicly criticized over family court debtor-prison practices on Rikers Island — before it was quietly sent back into the reassignment wheel without substantive rulings.
The file was booted again when Administrative Judge Suzanne J. Adams issued an Administrative Order sending the matter back to the “random” wheel for reassignment to an IAS judge.
Next, NYSCEF alert notices show the case landing in March 2025 with Justice James G. Clynes, and essentially immediately thereafter with Justice Richard G. Latin. The case then sat in that posture into 2026 until Latin’s retirement triggered another bounce.
After Latin retired, the case was randomly put into the inventory of Justice Brendan T. Lantry late last month, and Lantry recused sua sponte almost instantly, signing a Judiciary Law § 9 recusal and explaining he supported Castorina’s 2020 campaign and has relationships with parties in the action.
Finally, the latest assignment alert and the case lands—as of February 3, 2026—on Justice Emily Morales-Minerva, setting up the current conflict-of-interest showdown and the question of whether the case will finally clear the motion-to-dismiss bottleneck and reach discovery.
New York Courts Judicial Pinball: The Appearance of Impropriety and Another Political Mess
Justice Emily Morales-Minerva does not sit in a political vacuum.
She is married to Domenico “Nico” Minerva, the Manhattan Democrat Party county chair and longtime lieutenant to former Assemblyman Keith Wright — the power broker who controls judicial screening and county committee muscle in Manhattan. That matters.
The Manhattan Democrats are not unified; they are in open trench warfare with the Democratic Socialists of America, who are actively trying to take over county committee seats and dismantle Wright’s old-guard machine.
A partner at Labaton Keller Sucharow LLP, Morales-Minerva’s husband also adds private-sector legal clout to his already formidable political influence. Morales-Minerva’s husband sits at the center of the instant Democrat Party civil war.
Meanwhile, one of the defendants in Luthmann’s case is City Council Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks — a Democratic insider who operates inside the same political ecosystem. When a judge’s spouse runs the Democrat county party apparatus, vets judicial candidates, and answers to Keith Wright’s machine, the appearance problem writes itself. In a case already dripping with political crosscurrents, the optics are combustible.
Yet Morales-Minerva sits on the case without a peep about recusal. Her silence speaks volumes.
By contrast, Justice Lantry’s graceful exit shines like a beacon. He didn’t hide his connections – he openly disclosed that he’d served as Staten Island’s Republican chair and even supported Castorina’s judicial campaign. Rather than pretend those ties didn’t exist, he “put the truth on paper” and stepped aside.
“Most judges cling to cases like territory,” Luthmann said. “But Lantry wanted no part of this circus. His recusal exposed everything wrong with New York’s bench. And everything it’s supposed to be.”
From Luthmann’s vantage point, the pattern looks less like a coincidence and more like coordination. He openly questions whether there is a quiet Democratic Party “contract” at work — an unspoken understanding that this case never reaches discovery. His chief nemesis, Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon, still wields influence within what insiders call the remnant of the “Cuomo wing” of the New York State Democratic Party — the institutional machine faction that Keith Wright and his Manhattan cabal embody.
Luthmann believes that the same network that once “cheered and engineered” his prosecution would have every incentive to protect a sitting Democratic Majority Whip, avoiding deep discovery and videotaped depositions that could expose party infighting, campaign conduct, and back-channel pressure.
The repeated judicial reassignments are not random churn but political containment — the machine insulating its own from scrutiny while ensuring that any judge who touches the file understands the stakes.
Now the spotlight falls on Morales-Minerva: will she acknowledge the elephant in the room (her political entanglements), or continue presiding over an apparent friends-and-family judicial protection racket? Every day she hangs on without addressing the conflict is another day the case languishes.
Each delay conveniently postpones the day Hanks, Love, and Castorina would have to sit under oath and answer uncomfortable questions. Luthmann calls it “the cover-up” – the powerful shielding their own.
This court drama has it all: hardball politics, salacious allegations, and a bench that might be playing defense for the defendants.
New York Courts Judicial Pinball: Will the Truth Emerge?
Some observers say Luthmann’s case, as meritorious as it may be, may never receive due process in a New York courtroom because it runs head-on into a system perceived by critics as protective of its own. At the center of that concern is the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, the agency charged with disciplining errant judges. Led by Administrator Robert H. Tembeckjian, Luthmann repeatedly criticizes the Commission for its limited public accountability. Luthmann cites an intentionally slow pace of action despite record complaint numbers in recent years, with thousands of grievances filed and only a handful leading to public discipline.
Luthmann and his media allies have repeatedly published investigations alleging that the commission shields judges and tolerates ethical lapses rather than enforcing sanctions — a narrative that feeds skepticism about whether powerful judges and politically connected defendants will ever face real scrutiny.
At the same time, Luthmann’s long campaign against what he calls “judicial corruption” in Staten Island and beyond. The former election lawyer turned journalist and commentator regularly critiques prosecutorial conduct and grand jury testimony tied to figures like District Attorney Michael McMahon and Judge Castorina. This has made him a polarizing figure inside and outside the courts.
Together, these factors reinforce a perception among critics that New York’s judicial oversight apparatus may prioritise institutional insulation over due process, deepening doubts that a meritorious, yet politically sensitive case like Luthmann’s will ever receive due process in the New York Democrat-controlled swamp.
Richard Luthmann has made one thing clear: he’s not settling for silence. What began as a simple fee dispute has evolved into his personal crusade against what he sees as a weaponized justice system.
“Now it’s not about the money for me,” Luthmann says – “I want depositions and sworn testimony. There will be perjury traps set carefully and lawfully.”
He’s itching to grill Hanks about off-the-books campaign cash and fake Facebook antics, to pin down Love about his threats, and to confront Castorina about his perjury before a 2018 grand jury.
“They blew the deal. Now they don’t get to buy peace. They get discovery, depositions, and sunlight,” Luthmann wrote, vowing to drag the truth into the open “in all legal forums of available redress.”
He’s even quipped that if New York’s courts won’t deliver justice, he might sell Love’s debt to the Bloods street gang for $1 and “let nature take its course.” Luthmann says it’s hyperbole, but also a measure of his frustration.
“I dealt with the Bloods. They are honorable. I’d rather see them running sit-downs than this lot with their weaponized lawfare and fake justice,” Luthmann said.
Luthmann is nothing if not media-savvy: he’s splashed his battle across Substack and alternative press outlets, framing himself as a whistleblower exposing New York’s “justice” system as a rigged game. In his telling, the powerful tried to muzzle him.
He claims Hanks, Castorina, and Love even colluded to falsely report his journalism as “harassment” to federal authorities in 2022 – an attempt to violate his probation and throw him back in prison for speaking out. Those allegations underscore the broader narrative: that this isn’t just about one man’s legal fees, but about political elites abusing power to punish a dissident and cover their tracks.
After years of judicial pinball, the stakes go beyond Luthmann’s paycheck. Court insiders and outsiders alike are watching this case as a litmus test for judicial integrity in New York. Will the courts finally allow discovery and let Luthmann put his claims, which are rather pedestrian if they were to come from anyone else, to the test and put judges and politicians under oath? Or will the system find a way to quietly snuff out the case to spare the embarrassment of a City Council member and a fellow judge?
The credibility of the judiciary is on the line. As Luthmann himself warns, when conflicted judges stubbornly cling to cases they shouldn’t touch, “justice loses. The public loses. The judiciary loses.”
If the truth is suppressed here, it will only validate Luthmann’s fiery accusations of a court system that protects the connected and buries the truth. But if sunlight is allowed to disinfect this mess – if depositions happen and powerful people are forced to answer for their actions – it could be a rare victory for transparency in a courthouse clouded by politics.
In the end, Luthmann v. Hanks is more than a grudge match over old legal fees. It’s a high-stakes drama of power and accountability, a brash ex-lawyer-turned-journo’s bid to prove that justice in New York has been hijacked – and a challenge to the courts to prove him wrong.
The pinball is now in the judiciary’s court, and all of New York is watching to see if it tilts toward truth or cronyism.
Keep shining the sunlight stories! https://www.judicialcriminal.com
2/14/2026: Rep. Comer- Bidens autopen=Null and Void.
The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that a judgment entered without both subject-matter and personal jurisdiction is void ab initio, and may be collaterally attacked at any time. Jurisdiction is a threshold requirement that cannot be waived, presumed, or retroactively created by judicial assertion or procedural compliance
Michigan entered an original and two amendments "settlement agreement" with no client consent or signature.
8/11/2025: Motion to set aside settlement agreement -denied.
10/2025: Superintending control petition -denied.
2026: Appeal filed (2025) pending
https://clutchjustice.com/2025/10/13/michigan-family-court-24-years-whistleblower-ignored/