“No hard feelings.”
That’s how a Queens judge reacted Tuesday to the female lawyer who demanded that he remove a Viagra-themed light-switch cover from his courtroom.
Still, “I don’t feel I owe her an apology,’’ said Judge Martin Ritholtz, 68. “If [she] had approached me a second time, I would have taken it down immediately.’’
As The Post reported exclusively Tuesday, Lauren Garvey, a 28-year-old lawyer and former Hillary Rodham Clinton intern, complained to Ritholtz in January about the switch cover — which featured a male figure with a hole where the switch is, to mimic his penis, and the word “Viagra.”
Ritholtz had it removed only after The Post confronted him about it. He then gave a limp excuse for the delay, blaming it on underlings. “I have no hard feelings against Ms. Garvey,’’ Ritholtz insisted with a straight face.
“My clerks and court officers are in charge of making sure that no unauthorized notices are being posted in the courtroom.
“I should have taken it down when she mentioned it, but I simply forgot,’’ the judge said.
Gerald Stern, former head of the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct, said neither excuse measures up.
“There should be nothing in the courtroom that’s offensive to people especially sexual, gender-based, racial,” Stern said.
Ritholtz issued a stiff directive to the lawyers in his court Tuesday: “If I forget, do yourselves a favor and come back and remind me.”
Lawyers there told The Post that would never happen. “It’s his courtroom. I would not have brought it up,” one lawyer said.
Garvey, whom the judge chided for going to the media, said, “I’m glad it has finally been addressed. Hopefully, this will go towards restoring some decorum .’’