For three years, a New York judge collected a six-figure check for his job without ever showing up to work.
Acting Supreme Court Judge Daniel J. McCullough was forced to step down after an ethics panel found that he “persistently failed to report to work” since April 2014 instead of taking medical or disability leave. The state Commission on Judicial Conduct found that he had failed “to respect and comply with the law” and essentially forced him to retire, though he will still take home a $143,000-a-year pension.
McCullough suffers from health problems related to morbid obesity as well as herniated disks in his lower back and intestinal bleeding, but he still earned $193,000 per year while the other judges on the circuit took up his caseload.
In December 2014, after McCullough had been out of work for eight months, he was ordered to undergo a medical exam, which determined that he had “a complicated medical history which involves morbid obesity.” He was ordered to get a second exam in November 2015 but never did.
In October 2016, the commission started to investigate his absences, and in May 2017, they found that he had failed “to act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”
He filed for retirement the next day.
