Earle-Gargan has big lead in Queens Civil Court race
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Photo via Earle-Gargan’s campaign/Facebook
By David Brand
Jessica Earle-Gargan, a principal law secretary in Queens Supreme Court, has received more than 71 percent of the in-person vote in the countywide Democratic primary for a seat on the Civil Court bench.
Earle-Gargan serves under Justice William Viscovich and previously worked with Justice Maureen Healy. She has worked in Queens Supreme Court since 2014.
Earle-Gargan formerly worked for Richard T. Lau & Associates and served as a Kings County assistant district attorney. She graduated from St. John’s University Law School and earned her bachelor’s degree from Queens College.
She was designated for a countywide position by the Queens County Democratic Party and received 73,644 of the 102,908 votes so far counted across Queens. Her opponent John Ciafone received 28,825 votes, or about 28 percent. Thousands of absentee ballots have yet to be tallied.
In the primary race for a 6th Municipal Court District judgeship, Leigh Cheng leads Juan Hong 62 percent to 37 percent with exactly 12,000 in-person votes tallied. Cheng works as a law secretary for Justice Lee Mayersohn in Queens Supreme Court, Civil Term.
The Sixth Municipal Court District includes Flushing and other parts of Central Queens.
Two other candidates for Civil Court judgeships, Nestor Diaz, Jr. and Denise Johnson, were unopposed in their primary contests.
Diaz is a criminal defense attorney and a past president of the Latino Lawyers Association of Queens County. He is the first Dominican-American man designated for a judgeship and was honored earlier this year as “Man of the Year” by the organization 100 Hispanic Men. He is designated for a countywide position.
Johnson has served as a principal law secretary for nearly 14 years. She is a past president of the Macon B. Allen Black Bar Association and a member of the Queens County Women’s Bar Association, the Association of Black Women Attorneys, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the National Bar Association. She is a graduate of St. John’s University Law School. She is designated for the Fourth Municipal Court District, which includes a swath of Southeast Queens.
