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A New York judge recently decided to leave the bench, but this isn’t exactly your typical judicial resignation. Mitchell Soules Jr., who is not an attorney, served as a justice of the Little Falls Town Court, and left his position shortly after pleading guilty to drug-dealing charges.
According to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Soules was arrested last summer in a cocaine trafficking investigation, and later suspended from his duties. He officially tendered his resignation last month. The Times Union has additional details:
Soules’s arrest was the culmination of a three-month investigation by the State Police violent gang and narcotics enforcement team, an anti-drug squad that helps local police investigate narcotics trafficking upstate.
The Rome Sentinel reported that Soules pleaded guilty to the drug sales charges when he appeared last month in Herkimer County Court. The newspaper reported Soules sold cocaine in 2023 and was arrested in German Flatts.
Specifically, Soules pleaded guilty to one felony count of third-degree sale of a controlled substance. As part of his agreement with the Commission, he will never seek or accept appointment to a judicial office again.
The New York Law Journal received a statement from Commission Administrator and Counsel Robert Tembeckjian: “Public confidence is irretrievably lost in a judge who engages in the criminal sale of drugs, and the resulting damage to the integrity of the court system is immeasurable,” he said. “But it is also reassuring that our law-enforcement and ethics-enforcement entities hold them accountable and protect the public by removing them from positions of trust.”
Soules will be sentenced May 29.
Cocaine-dealing Herkimer County judge resigns [Times Union]
New York Judge Who Pleaded Guilty to Dealing Drugs Resigns From Bench [New York Law Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on X/Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
