A New York City judge attempted to use her position to get out of garbage fines after she left trash outside of her Brooklyn home.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Katherine Levine began picking up $50 sanitation fines beginning in March 2024 after city workers found a 'large accumulation' of napkins, papers and egg cartons outside her home, records showed.
A year later, she racked up two more fines for not putting the lids on her trash cans outside of her Borough Park home, where she has lived since the 1990s.
While communicating with the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH), she 'repeatedly and gratuitously invoked her judicial title,' the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct determined.
Levine failed to pay her first summons, instead opting to challenge it, where she wrote: 'I plead not guilty. I am a Supreme Court Justice in Kings County and went to work at 10am.'
OATH determined that she 'failed to set forth a valid legal defense regarding the summons' and told her the fine would be due within 30 days. She did not pay it.
In March and June 2025, Levine received two more summons, each amounting to a $50 mail-in fine. She did not challenge either summons.
In June and October of that year, OATH issued a decision based on her failure to reply. Due to the defaults, her fine was increased to $300 per fine.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Kathrine Levine was admonished by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct for evoking her title in an attempt to get out of trash fines
Levine was fined for leaving trash outside her home and not properly sealing her trash bins (stock image)
The judge left OATH a voicemail on October 14, 2025, introducing herself as Judge Katherine Levine, telling them that she has 'trials every day in Supreme Court.'
The same day, she emailed OATH twice regarding the three fines from her work email, which identified the sender as Hon. Katherine A Levine, the commission said.
'I was never notified of hearing dates on these tickets, and I cannot come down and sit in OATH for 10 hours as I am a trial judge in Supreme Court,' she wrote, according to the commission.
Levine also asked how to just pay the fine without attending a hearing, as she has 'trials and motions every day.'
The next day, she filed an online motion regarding the summons, once again stating she was a NYS Supreme Court justice.
'I vacate default judgments all the time in the name of equity and justice. I believe these first-time tickets for garbage disposals is 50 dollars,' she also wrote, according to the commission.
OATH responded that they do 'not participate in settlement' and that the judge 'must follow OATH rules and protocols as everyone must do.'
In three more emails, Levine asked for a supervisor.
The judge repeatedly tried to use her position as a judge to get out of an OATH hearing and to reduce her trash fines after she violated sanitations rules three times in 2024 and 2025
Prior to the commission's review, Levine had not had any disciplinary history. She has been a judge since 2008 and has served in the Kings County Supreme Court since 2017.
Levine reportedly has 'openly and repeatedly expressed her remorse and embarrassment for having allowed her own frustrations to affect how she handled the Department of Sanitation summonses,' the commission said.
'Further, respondent recognizes that the gratuitous invocation of her judicial title was reasonably perceived at OATH as an attempt for a favorable adjudication of her summonses,' the commission said.
The commission found her conduct was 'inconsistent with her obligations to maintain high standards of conduct' and broke the rule stating that a 'judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others.'
'By repeatedly invoking her judicial office when communicating with OATH, respondent brought reproach upon the judiciary and violated her ethical obligations,' the commission wrote.
Levine will not face any further punishment from the commission, who determined admonition was enough.
'We trust that respondent has learned from this experience and in the future will act in strict accordance with her obligation to abide by all the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct,' it wrote.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Levine's lawyer for comment.
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