Judge Astacio Jailed Again After Hearing
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story misstated the violation of Leticia Astacio's conditional sentence.
ROCHESTER, Due north.Y. — A Rochester City Courtroom judge remained in jail Thursday later a hearing and could spend at least the adjacent four weeks every bit an inmate.
Did Judge Leticia Astacio know the judge overseeing her drunk-driving example had ordered her to submit to a urinalysis to exam for alcohol consumption? And if she did, when did she know it?
The action that caused Judge Stephen Aronson of Canandaigua City Court, who is overseeing her case, to order the test occurred April 29 when the ignition interlock device on her car registered a blood-booze-content reading of 0.0651% equally someone tried to start information technology. Astacio said her daughter blew into the car breathalyzer; other people are allowed to bulldoze cars outfitted with such equipment.
"I didn't have the power to communicate with anyone by telephone or text message" for about 20 days from May 7 to 27 considering of spotty and expensive cellphone coverage, she said in courtroom. "I was able to communicate with my family unit through social media."
She first learned of the courtroom order to take the urinalysis May 27 when she received electronic mail from her lawyer, she said. So crux of Thursday'south proceedings turned on whether Astacio was notified of her obligation to take the test in a timely manner and whether she could accept complied just didn't.
She had not been prohibited from traveling as part of her provisional discharge Aug. 22 for a Feb. thirteen, 2016, drunken-driving abort on her style to work. Just she was required to submit to random court-ordered drug tests and abstain from alcohol.
"I was trying to de-stress and go away from all of this," she said.
On May ane, Astacio bought a 1-way ticket to Thailand and was on a aeroplane to Bangkok the side by side day, prosecutor Zach Maurer said. She afterward told her lawyer, Ed Fiandach, that she planned to stay until sometime in August.
At one betoken, she instructed Fiandach to tell reporters she was living in a temple with monks in the mountains, merely photos of her touring the Thai capital letter surfaced on Instagram at the same time she claimed to be in the monastery.
That Instagram account was changed from public to private Wednesday afternoon after the Democrat and Chronicle reported on the discovery.
When Astacio missed a May 30 court date, Aronson issued a bench warrant for her arrest. She was taken into custody Monday later being summoned for a 9 a.m. ET meeting with her boss, Justice Craig Doran of the New York State Supreme Court, in the Monroe County Hall of Justice.
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"I don't call back anyone tin can fault her for leaving approximately after eight months on her conditional discharge when she had never before been asked to submit to EtG (ethyl glucuronide) testing," Fiandach said. The urine test can detect booze consumed upwards to fourscore hours beforehand.
Aronson did fault her, finding her guilty of violating the atmospheric condition of her drunk-driving sentence because she did not take the urinalysis and ordering her held without bail until her sentencing date, July 6.
Astacio, who still retains her championship as judge and has been receiving her $173,700 almanac bacon even though she has not presided over cases since last summer, at present faces the penalties she would have been field of study to upon her original conviction, which include upward to a yr in jail.
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Fiandach said he planned to appeal.
Aronson'southward decision immediately drew cries of, "Racist!" and "Racist cracker!" from the standing-room only gallery.
In her cherry jailhouse scrubs, Astacio turned to them and said: "I'chiliad fine. I'm totally fine."
Follow David Andreatta on Twitter: @david_andreatta
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/06/09/new-york-judge-guilty/383047001/
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