Peter Weinmann expected to be confirmed as state judge

The state Senate is expected to confirm the nomination of Buffalo attorney Peter Weinmann as a Court of Claims judge on Thursday, meaning the term of censured Judge Mark Grisanti will soon end.

“Judge Grisanti will remain in his position until a new judge is confirmed and begins his term,” Al Baker, a spokesman for the Office of Judicial Administration, said Wednesday.

Weinmann, who was appointed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, told the Buffalo News in an interview that if the Senate confirms him Thursday, he will begin work in a few months as a Court of Claims judge assigned to the Supreme Court of the State of Erie County.

Because he is part of the busy law firm Wolfgang & Weinmann, he said the Office of Court Administration is giving him a few months to transfer clients and cases to his associates before he takes the oath of office and begins to work on the bench.

“It’s very exciting. I’m processing everything right now,” he said.

For Grisanti, who was censured earlier this year by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, this week has been more difficult.

Hochul and her team remained publicly silent about Grisanti’s status when she named Weinmann to the Court of Claims.

“Judge Grisanti has not received notice regarding his reappointment,” Grisanti’s attorney, Terrence M. Connors, said Wednesday.

“But judges and lawyers who are familiar with his work have expressed support for the judge,” Connors added. “Even the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, after a thorough investigation, concluded that, overall, two hours of misconduct did not warrant his removal from the bench.”

Grisanti, 59, a Court of Claims judge assigned to the state Supreme Court since 2015, has served as a residual judge since his term expired in July 2023.

Grisanti was censured on April 30 by the Judicial Conduct Commission because of his angry 2020 confrontation with neighbors and Buffalo police, during which he shoved an officer and was handcuffed, but was not charged . A police body camera video showing a shirtless Grisanti and his wife shouting expletives at neighbors and police during the argument went viral when it was published in 2020.

Grisanti recently served as the judge who oversaw a wrongful death trial that resulted in a $95 million verdict against Erie County for the asphyxiation death of detention center inmate Richard Metcalf Jr. deputies as they restrained them by tying a “spit mask” around his neck and putting a pillowcase over his head.

Grisanti was a Republican senator who voted to legalize same-sex marriages in New York state before losing the 2014 election and was appointed to the bench by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Weinmann, 62, has represented corporate, industrial and high-end residential taxpayers contesting their tax assessments since 2000. His clients in those cases included the owners of the Seneca One Tower, Eastern Hills Mall and Boulevard Mall. He and his company have saved homeowners millions of dollars, according to his company’s website.

Before that, he was a former chief of narcotics prosecutions in the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.

Weinmann said he applied to Hochul’s administration two years ago to be appointed as a judge after being encouraged to do so by Erie County political leaders. He was then interviewed by a selection committee representing the governor.

Last week, a member of Hochul’s staff called him to tell him the governor was appointing him to a Court of Claims judgeship, Weinmann said.

That led to Wednesday’s meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Weinmann told senators he was a first-generation American, the son of Jewish immigrants who fled Nazi Germany to escape persecution. His mother was in the gallery watching him testify, while his wife, Amelida, and their four children watched him live.

“I believe that there is no higher calling than that of public service, and I therefore feel that my 37 years of legal practice and community work have given me the life experience and experience necessary to best serve my community in a judicial role,” he testified.

He said empathy and the ability to listen will be the core values ​​of his judicial philosophy.

“I thank Governor Hochul for appointing me to this privileged position,” he said.