Barely two weeks after his home was searched by law enforcement authorities, a New York State judge committed suicide on Tuesday, April 5, one of his lawyers, Terrence Connors, said.
Judge John L. Michalski, who was found dead at his home in Amherst, N.Y., shortly before noon, was an acting justice of the State Supreme Court.
“It’s difficult to explain what a tragedy this is,” said Mr. Connors, a longtime friend of Justice Michalski’s, adding that “it would be difficult to find a judge who was more respected” in the Western New York legal community.
Federal and state law enforcement officers had executed a search warrant at Justice Michalski’s home 12 days before his death, against the backdrop of the federal prosecution of one of his former clients.
Michalski, 61, had been eyed by investigators for years, but no criminal charges were ever filed against him. His looming legal woes seemed to be “manageable,” Connors said.
Justice Michalski’s death, at 61, came a little more than a year after another apparent suicide attempt in which, according to police records, he was struck by a freight train after lying on the tracks in a rail yard near Buffalo in the middle of the day. He sustained a serious leg injury but was otherwise unhurt, Mr. Connors said.
Days after the February 2021 incident, Michalski was questioned by federal agents about his friendship with Peter Gerace Jr., the owner of a strip club in Cheektowaga and a former client, the Buffalo News reported.
