Corruption In Plain Sight: Why Does This New Jersey Resident Have A New York Judge’s Placard?

Why is a car with New Jersey plates and a New York State-issued parking placard parked in a “Judges only” parking space in Lower Manhattan when only New York State residents can be judges?

It’s a mystery for sure — but don’t expect any actual officials to care enough to solve it for you.

Streetsblog has repeatedly seen a beat-up white Hyundai parked outside the Manhattan courthouse — frequently in “judge-only” parking — with a real court-issued placard on the dash.

If the vehicle with the New Jersey plates really belongs to a judge, as the placard states, it’s a scofflaw: Judges are required by the state Constitution to live in New York State. If the vehicle belongs to a lower-level court employee like an interpreter, court reporter or law clerk, its unclear why it’s sometimes parked in judges-only spots.

The only thing that is clear is that the owner of the car is a New Jersey resident: Their car has New Jersey plates, a 2025 New Jersey registration (expired, by the way), a sticker from a car wash in East Orange, NJ and another sticker from a dealership in Linden, NJ.

A court spokesperson declined to answer questions about the scofflaw or judge impersonator operating in plain sight — beyond defending the issuance of a placard to a New Jersey vehicle.

“The placard you identified was issued to a [court] employee,” spokesman Al Baker wrote. “The use of placards for official business is permitted in employees’ personal vehicles even when those vehicles are registered out of state.”

Baker declined to identify the holder of this placard or their job in the courthouse.

The driver has been ticketed once before when parked near the courthouse: In February 2021, it was parked around the corner in an area currently marked (wait for it!) as parking for staffers of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The driver seemingly paid $95 to resolve the ticket without going to court.

Why does the mystery around this one vehicle even matter? It’s not like this one scofflaw or judge impersonator with one parking ticket comprises the biggest corruption we’ve seen, but the car is a symbol of the rampant lawlessness that pervades city streets, where public employees use their placards to block hydrants, clog sidewalks and obstruct bike and bus lanes without accountability.

This practice clogs our streets with people who either shouldn’t be working here or should not be granted placards that encourage driving when they work in the densest, most transit-rich part of the city.

It’s no wonder courthouses around the city are ringed by rows of placard-bearing personal vehicles of various court employees. Court officers and court clerks get placards through their unions; judges and other employees get placards — labeled as “NYSJ” placards — directly from the court itself.

The state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct receives “periodic” complaints of judges using these placards for non-court business such as parking outside their homes, something that then-Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks called an “issue of public concern” in 2019.

The ethics commission urged judges to be conscious of how their placard use might affect the public’s perception of the judiciary.

“Placard misuse is an easily avoided self-inflicted ethics injury,” the commission wrote in 2023, writing that resolving these complaints even just through confidential letters of caution caused “disciplinary blemish to the individual judge, not to mention harm to the reputation of the judiciary.”

But nothing changes. Perhaps it’s silly to expect change, given that city and state employees who have been busted for distributing fake placards end up having their cases heard in the same courthouse where the mystery “judge” works.

A vicious cycle of justice.

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