A straight-talking Long Island judge who tossed a “lazy” and “arrogant” father in the clink for racking up $517,000 in child support and alimony arrears has been rebuked for his alleged hostility toward the man.
A mid-level appeals panel removed Nassau County Family Court Justice Thomas Rademaker from the case for taking “an adversarial stance toward the father” and making “numerous improper remarks to him.”
But the panel refused the dad’s request to reduce the arrears.
Rademaker, 47, a Conservative who was appointed to the bench in 2015, told Michael Alan Berg, 53, that he “symbolizes everything that’s wrong with the world today.”
He said that the “selfish” father of a 15-year-old daughter was “the last guy that he would want to be in a foxhole with” because he would “fold like a cheap suit.”
The Baldwin dad told The Post he had to sell his telecommunications business to pay divorce lawyers and couldn’t afford the $3,000 in monthly child-support payments and $7,000 in alimony ordered in 2012.
The judge “just went on a soapbox,” Berg said. “Maybe he was jealous I made more than him. It seemed like he had it out for me.”
The appeals panel faulted Rademaker for making “the matter personal by comparing the father’s experience to the judge’s own.”
Rademaker did not return a call seeking comment. The ex-wife’s lawyer declined to comment.