Sherri Eisenpress: Misconduct Charges, Response, and Retirement

Sherri Eisenpress is a former New York State Supreme Court Justice who agreed to leave the bench by April 28, 2026, after the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct brought formal misconduct charges accusing her of presiding over dozens of cases involving attorneys she vacationed, socialized, and exchanged group text messages with — none of which she disclosed on the record. Under the negotiated stipulation, she also agreed never to seek or accept a judicial position in New York again.¹²

The Four Misconduct Charges

On August 7, 2025, the Commission served Eisenpress with an Amended Formal Written Complaint containing four charges. All four centered on undisclosed personal relationships with attorneys and court staff whose cases she handled.¹

Vacations and Group Texts With Matrimonial Attorneys

The first charge alleged that between 2019 and 2024, Eisenpress presided over at least 55 cases involving five matrimonial attorneys with whom she had disqualifying relationships: Amy M. Eisenberg, Ilene Graff, Siobhan T. O’Grady, Ashley Kersting, and Christine K. Wienberg. She never disclosed those relationships or recused herself.¹

Eisenpress and these attorneys belonged to group text chains with names including “Punta Cana Partiers,” “Bougie B*tches,” and “Queen Dara & her loyal subjects.” The Commission described the threads as containing gossip, memes, travel plans, “off-color jokes,” and “sexually graphic images.”¹³

The group also traveled together abroad. In March 2019, Eisenpress went to Punta Cana for attorney O’Grady’s 40th birthday and shared a room with attorney Wienberg on a trip that cost roughly $4,456. From 2021 to 2023, she went on annual trips to Mexico — the Mayan Riviera in 2021 and Puerto Vallarta in 2022 and 2023 — with overlapping groups of the same attorneys and court staff. As a Vidanta vacation club member, Eisenpress made the resort reservations, charged expenses to her room, and had the group reimburse her afterward.¹ A fourth trip planned for November 2024 was canceled after she learned the Commission was investigating.⁴

Her Court Attorney’s Husband’s Law Firm

The second charge alleged that from 2016 to 2025, Eisenpress presided over at least 41 cases involving the law firm of David Warren, the husband of her principal court attorney, Dara Warren. Warren and his partner Alan Rosenblatt practiced first at Montalbano, Condon & Frank, P.C. and later at Rosenblatt Warren LLP, which they established in 2022. Warren or Rosenblatt personally appeared before Eisenpress in roughly 30 of those 41 cases. The Commission alleged she neither disclosed the family connection nor insulated Dara Warren from working on those matters.¹

A Campaign Fundraiser and a Custody Order

The third charge involved a 2022 matrimonial case. Attorney Lisa Zeiderman, with co-counsel Ashley Kersting and Siobhan O’Grady — both friends and travel companions of Eisenpress — represented the plaintiff in a divorce assigned to Eisenpress’s Integrated Domestic Violence Part in November 2021. Zeiderman had also agreed to co-host a $500-per-ticket fundraiser at her home for Eisenpress’s 2022 Supreme Court campaign, scheduled for May 22, 2022.¹

On May 17, 2022, days before the fundraiser, Eisenpress issued an unsolicited temporary order granting Zeiderman’s client sole physical and legal custody of the couple’s children. She did not disclose the fundraiser arrangement to the parties at a conference held on May 11. After opposing counsel Jean Marquardt discovered the fundraiser and filed an emergency motion for disqualification on May 20, Eisenpress recused herself on May 23, 2022, citing the need “to avoid the appearance of impropriety, impartiality or bias.”¹

Refusing a Pro Se Litigant’s Recusal Request

The final charge arose from a 2024 case in which David Warren represented a party. At a June 24, 2024, conference, Eisenpress told the parties that her court attorney was “related” to Warren and said the court attorney would not work on the case. The opposing party, representing himself, objected: “That should be a reason to recuse yourself. I mean seriously.” Eisenpress denied the request. She later recused herself on October 3, 2024, but cited reasons unrelated to the Warren connection.¹

How Eisenpress Responded

In an Amended Verified Answer filed August 28, 2025, Eisenpress denied that her conduct amounted to judicial misconduct. She admitted the factual existence of the relationships and travel but said she did not consider the attorneys “close personal or social friends” and described her contacts with them as “sporadic, occasional, and superficial.” Based on ethics opinions she was familiar with, she said, she did not believe disclosure was “necessary or warranted.”¹

On the group texts, she acknowledged belonging to them but said she did not author any of the off-color jokes or images, that the thread was mostly for “jokes, memes and travel plans,” and that others had created the names. On the 2022 custody order, she asserted the ruling was “subsequently upheld on appeal.”⁵

In her January 29, 2026, resignation letter to Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas, Eisenpress wrote that she had “concluded that the most responsible course for my family, was to step aside rather than subject litigants, myself, the court system, and my colleagues to a prolonged and financially draining proceeding.” She added that she disagreed with “many aspects of the Commission’s position.”⁶⁷

Terms of the Retirement Agreement

Eisenpress signed the stipulation on January 28, 2026, the Commission accepted it on January 29, 2026, and she submitted her resignation letter the same day. The agreement sets her last day at the close of business on April 28, 2026, and bars her from ever seeking or accepting another New York judicial position. If she violates those terms, the Commission can revive the proceedings, hold a hearing, or summarily remove her from office.¹

The stipulation states that it “is not a determination on the merits and contains no admission of misconduct.” Eisenpress waived the statutory confidentiality of the Commission’s proceedings so the stipulation and the related decision and order could be released publicly.¹

Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian called the allegations “serious” and said her “permanent departure from office is appropriate.” He added: “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, and disclosing arguably disqualifying conflicts so the parties have an opportunity to ask that the judge step aside.”⁵

The Ethics Rules Behind the Case

New York’s Rules Governing Judicial Conduct, codified in Part 100 of the Rules of the Chief Administrator of the Courts, require judges to disqualify themselves from any proceeding in which their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The rules also bar judges from allowing “family, social, political or other relationships to influence” their judicial conduct and from maintaining continuing business relationships with lawyers likely to appear before them.⁸

The New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics has distinguished among acquaintanceships, which require no recusal; “close social relationships,” which require at minimum disclosure on the record; and “close personal relationships,” which require disqualification. The charges against Eisenpress turned on where her relationships with the attorneys landed on that spectrum, and on whether her silence deprived litigants of the chance to seek her recusal.⁹

Her Career on the Bench

Eisenpress was elected Rockland County Family Court Judge in 2011 and took the bench in 2012, serving a decade in Family Court while also sitting as an Acting Supreme Court Justice in Rockland County beginning in 2014.¹¹⁰⁵

In her resignation letter, Eisenpress said she took pride in creating the Rockland Criminal Domestic Violence HUB Court and in presiding over the Integrated Domestic Violence Court, Youth Court, and Family Treatment Court. When the Commission’s investigation became public, she was temporarily sitting in Orange County Supreme Court.⁵¹

1
NY Commission on Judicial Conduct. In the Matter of Sherri L. Eisenpress, Stipulation
2
NY Commission on Judicial Conduct. Press Release: Justice Sherri L. Eisenpress
3
ABA Journal. New York Judge Traveled, Socialized With Lawyers Appearing in Her Court, Investigation Reveals
4
Times Union. Rockland County Judge and the Punta Cana Partiers
5
The Journal News (lohud.com). NY Supreme Court Justice Sherri Eisenpress Resigns After Facing Judicial Conduct Charges
6
New York Post. NY Judge Took Vacations With Lawyers, Was in Text Thread Filled With Off-Color Jokes, Sexually Explicit Images
7
Rockland County Business Journal. Justice Sherri Eisenpress Resigns From the Bench Following Formal Charges of Misconduct
8
New York State Unified Court System. Rules of the Chief Administrator of the Courts, Part 100
9
New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, Social Media Guidance
10
New York State Board of Elections. Sherri L. Eisenpress, 2022 Election Results