Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Francois A. Rivera “had not paid any money for his judicial position,” the New York Post acknowledged yesterday in a published item, apparently bringing to an end the judge’s five-year-old defamation lawsuit against the newspaper. Justice Rivera sued the Post in 2006 after it published several articles saying he was under investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office for allegedly paying $50,000 for a Democratic nomination. But the newspaper said that it had learned during the lawsuit that the judge had not paid any money for a spot on the ballot. “The Post believes that it had appropriate sources for the articles. The lawsuit has now been settled to the parties’ mutual satisfaction,” the item stated.
Attorneys for Justice Rivera and the New York Post signed a two-page stipulation in Rivera v. NYP Holdings, 114858-2006, discontinuing the action with prejudice. More than two years ago, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Milton A. Tingling prohibited Post interrogatories that would have forced Justice Rivera to say whether he testified before a grand jury or had been questioned by the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Justice Rivera has never been charged with a crime by the Brooklyn district attorney, nor has he been sanctioned by the conduct commission.
