The all-Democratic city council in suburban White Plains, N.Y., gave its party chairperson a six-figure judicial seat despite the fact that she is too obese to climb the three steps to the bench.
City judge Elizabeth Shollenberger, who suffers from a digestive disorder and obesity, was appointed to the $175,500-a-year job in December and has since disgusted her colleagues with gastrointestinal issues.
“She would come in and we would see the diarrhea running down her leg and to the floor,” one court worker told the NY Post. “She would soil the chair and then ask for a new one.”
Shollenberger further dismayed her colleagues by displaying “complete arrogance” following the embarrassing incidents.
“She would just say, ‘There is a mess over there. I think someone should clean it up,'” a court source told the NY Post.
City Judicial Review Committee member Mark Elliott publicly accused White Plains Mayor Tom Roach of ensuring “the fix was in” for Shollenberger, who served as his campaign treasurer. Elliot previously slammed Roach in an email after the City Council ignored the committee’s rejection of Shollenberger, who Elliott described as a “machine politician.”
The committee decided not to approve Shollenberger for the position after realizing she was not fit to work during her interview.
“She came to the interview with an oxygen tank. She’s very fragile,” Elliott told the NY Post. “No reasonable person could have looked at her as I did and thought that she could finish her 10-year term.”
Shollenberger, 61, put her $65,000 in annual health benefits to work almost immediately, taking the first of several health leaves only one week after beginning her term.
Council member Milagros Lecuona accused Roach, who he will challenge for the mayoralty this year, of forcing through Shollenberger’s appointment despite the committee’s rejection “to make sure he’d have the support of the chair of the Democratic Party” for his re-election bid.
“If I knew what I know now, I would not have voted to support her,” Lecuona told the NY Post. “This is going to be a big problem for the taxpayers. It’s financially very irresponsible.”
Shollenberger’s husband called the complaints a “grotesque distortion” and a “hysterical overreaction to what was a minor health incident.”
The Office of Court Administration determined she was “unable to perform her job,” after receiving multiple reports regarding her incontinence, a high-level court source told the NY Post.
Shollenberger has been prohibited from receiving any new cases and her current case load has been distributed to other jurists but she wishes to continue serving in her current post.
“I have no intention of retiring. I want to work. I want to be a judge. Judges get sick all the time,” she said.
Shollenberger’s spokesperson called the court staffers complaints “quite a conspiracy theory,” and added that she would dispute all of their claims.
“The situation remains under review,” OCA spokesman Lucian Chalfen told the NY Post.
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