Judge Kasper Removed After Paralegal Posed as Lawyer

A Practice That Never Fully Closed

Joseph Kasper, admitted to the New York bar in 1984 and a longtime figure in the Queens County Republican Party, won an upset victory for a Civil Court seat in 2021 after several unsuccessful runs of his own, defeating Democratic nominee Paul Vallone. He took the bench on January 1, 2022, as the only Republican judge then sitting in Queens.

New York’s judicial conduct rules flatly bar a full-time judge from practicing law. According to the Commission’s findings, which Kasper stipulated to, he did not fully step away. He transferred a number of cases to Michael Mossa, a fellow attorney who shared his storefront law office in Ozone Park, but continued to personally advise at least one former client, discussed a federal judge’s ruling with him, made handwritten edits to a settlement agreement, and negotiated terms with opposing counsel, all more than a year after taking the bench. In one case, he told a former divorce client she needed to pay him a remaining $1,000 balance in cash before he would consider her case complete; she brought the cash to his old office and he handed her a signed receipt. He kept paying $1,400 a month in rent on that office for over two years after becoming a judge and remained the attorney of record on at least six client matters as of February 2024, more than two years into his judgeship. In one of them, a debt collection case, the matter actually came before him for a hearing in his own courtroom under the court’s random assignment system; he took no judicial action and let it be adjourned but did not withdraw as counsel of record for another six weeks.

A Paralegal Who Signed Her Emails “Attorney at Law”

Kasper’s longtime friend and paralegal, Janice Bar, had worked for him since 2016. In that same year, she was convicted at trial of two felonies, forgery in the second degree and making an apparently sworn false statement in the first degree, convictions later upheld on appeal. New York law bars anyone with a criminal conviction from serving as a notary public. However, Bar notarized documents in Kasper’s former cases.

For more than two years after Kasper took the bench, Bar continued running his old practice: filing court documents, negotiating settlements, and communicating with clients and opposing counsel, using an office email account whose signature block read “Janice Bar, Attorney at Law” beneath an image of the scales of justice, on at least 37 emails Kasper personally received and read. Kasper let her use his personal e-filing credentials on New York’s court system, NYSCEF, which she used to file documents at least 22 times between January 2022 and August 2023; the Commission found Kasper pre-approved or later authorized every one of them. She also opened at least one brand-new case entirely on her own initiative using his login and his credit card, after Kasper referred one of his own rental tenants to her for a divorce.

The most serious single episode happened in a Queens Supreme Court courtroom on May 4, 2023. A witness examination was scheduled in an old client’s uncontested divorce case. Text messages show Kasper coordinating the appearance in real time: when his former client, waiting in the courtroom without an attorney, texted him in a panic, Kasper replied that the lawyer was “minutes away,” then “in the building,” and asked, “Is Janice with you?” The court record shows Bar entering an appearance identifying herself as counsel, then personally conducting the sworn examination of the witness while Mossa sat by without participating. When the judge presiding over the matter later asked whether Bar was admitted to practice in federal court, she gave an evasive non-answer rather than disclosing she was not a lawyer at all. Bar told Kasper afterward that she, not Mossa, had conducted the examination. Kasper’s stipulated response was, “It’s a good thing you were there.” He took no steps to report or correct what had happened. Separately, when Mossa was asked under oath during the Commission’s investigation whether he had permitted Bar to act as an attorney in court, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination rather than answer.

Escrow Funds and Missed Disclosures

The Commission also found Kasper failed to disburse client funds from his attorney escrow accounts before taking the bench and for more than two years afterward. As of April 1, 2024, roughly $17,200 remained across his two escrow accounts; Mossa, acting on Kasper’s behalf, cut checks that April to close out three of the outstanding balances, totaling about $9,660. As of April 23, 2024, Kasper could not account for the remaining $7,540. Separately, when the Commission wrote to Kasper in October 2024 asking him to account for more than $116,000 in deposits and withdrawals that had moved through his escrow accounts since he became a judge, he requested four separate extensions and then never responded at all; the $7,540 remains unaccounted for to this day.

Kasper also failed to file the financial disclosure statement required of judicial candidates in 2021 and filed an incomplete annual disclosure for that year that omitted a section requiring him to list outside income over $1,000. After a Notice to Cure and then a formal Notice of Delinquency from the state’s Ethics Commission, he did not file a materially complete statement until 19 months later.

The Discipline Ladder (New York)

New York’s Commission on Judicial Conduct works differently from Texas: it does not merely recommend a sanction to a court. It can determine one directly, ranging up through admonition, censure, and removal. A judge who disagrees has 30 days to request review by the New York Court of Appeals, which can then accept the Commission’s findings and sanction, reduce or increase the sanction, or reject the findings outright. If no review is requested within that window, the Commission’s determination becomes final on its own.

Facts Admitted, Severity Disputed

Kasper and the Commission’s administrator jointly submitted an Agreed Statement of Facts in March 2026, meaning Kasper does not dispute that any of the above happened. The only question argued before the Commission, at oral argument on June 18, 2026, was the sanction. Commission counsel argued for removal; Kasper’s attorney, Richard Emery, a founding partner at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel and a former Commission member himself, argued for a sanction no more severe than censure, saying removal is reserved for misconduct that threatens the public and that Kasper’s on-the-bench record was never at issue.

The Commission disagreed, writing that Kasper’s failure to accept full responsibility for his own conduct, including disclaiming knowledge of how Bar used his e-filing account despite having stipulated that he authorized her filings, counted against him as an aggravating factor. It concluded that “the totality of the evidence established that respondent’s repeated violations of the Rules were egregious and he is unfit for the bench.”

The Rules He Broke

A Rare Sanction in Queens

Removal is the Commission’s rarest outcome, and Kasper’s case would be only the third time a Queens judge has received it. In 2018, the Commission removed Civil Court Judge Terrence O’Connor, who had dismissed several cases because an attorney’s response of “okay” to a witness struck him as an improperly leading cue, and who was separately found to have been hostile toward attorneys appearing before him. Before that, the only other Queens judge removed by the Commission was Laura Blackburne, presiding judge of Queens’ Treatment Court, removed in 2005 after directing a court officer to sneak a defendant out of the courthouse through a back stairway to help him evade a police detective who was lawfully waiting to arrest him.

Kasper’s Civil Court term runs through the end of 2031, but he turns 70 this year and would be barred from continuing to serve past December 31, 2026, under New York’s mandatory judicial retirement age regardless of how the removal proceeding is resolved.

How It Works in Texas

Texas readers encounter a different structure but a similar underlying idea: the State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC) investigates and can impose lower-tier sanctions itself, but removal requires a separate Review Tribunal, with the Texas Supreme Court available on appeal. New York’s Commission, by contrast, can order removal on its own in the first instance, subject only to the judge’s option to seek Court of Appeals review. For a fuller walk-through of the Texas process, see our explainer, The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Explained.

How It Played in the Press

The Queens Daily Eagle broke the story with an in-depth account drawing on the Commission’s report and comment from Kasper’s attorney. Given how rare a Queens removal is, and the vividness of the courtroom-impersonation episode once the full 69-page determination became public, this one is likely to draw wider coverage as Kasper’s Court of Appeals review proceeds.

Where Is He Now?

As of publication, Kasper remains a sitting Queens Civil Court judge while his attorney pursues review by the New York Court of Appeals; the Commission’s removal determination is not yet final. Separately, he will reach New York’s mandatory retirement age of 70 at the end of 2026 regardless of how that review concludes.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCE

• New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Determination, In the Matter of Joseph F. Kasper, dated August 3, 2026. cjc.ny.gov

NEWS COVERAGE

• Queens Daily Eagle: State orders removal of Queens judge over misconduct findings (August 11, 2026). queenseagle.com

REFERENCE

• New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct: Overview. cjc.ny.gov
• New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct: Procedures. cjc.ny.gov
• New York Judiciary Law Section 44 (Commission review and sanction procedure). nysenate.gov
• Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct: FAQ. scjc.texas.gov
• Deandra Grant Law: The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Explained. texasdwisite.com

This post summarizes public judicial-discipline records and news reporting for general informational purposes as of publication. It is not legal advice, and nothing here implies that Judge Kasper’s still-reviewable determination has been finally decided.