12 Jun 2026, 19:38 p.m.
2026 NYC Primary Election Judicial Recommendations
Campaign site: https://www.edwardirizarryforcivilcourtjudge.com/
NYC Bar Association rating: Approved
LGBT Bar Association rating: Failed to Appear
Queens County Bar Association rating: Qualified
So, in his Ballotpedia questionnaire answers, Irizarry says
.... I am a former counsel to the consumer protection committee in the New York State Senate, a legislative counsel in the New York City Council....
but does not mention that he was specifically Hiram Monserrate's counsel. (Paywalled article from August 12th, 2009 about the ripple effects of then-State Senator Monserrate and a few of his colleagues betraying his Democratic colleagues to go caucus with the Republicans, then coming back again. "Several Monserrate staffers received significant raises: Edward Irizarry, his committee counsel, received a post-coup raise of $15,040 to boost his salary to $95,260...")
This was after Monserrate had been caught on video dragging his girlfriend down a hallway, her face slashed with glass, in December 2008.
"On Jan. 15 - about a month after his arrest for allegedly slashing his girlfriend with a broken glass - Monserrate cut a check for $1,500 to Jackson Heights attorney Edward Irizzary." (Monserrate used campaign money to cover his legal bills.)
In March 2009 Monserrate was indicted for assault for that incident (March 2009). In October of that year he was convicted. The Senate expelled him.
Oh, and in 2010, Monserrate was indicted on federal corruption charges. In 2012 he pled guilty to mail fraud and he served time in federal prison -- and was sentenced to make restitution payments too, but was pretty tardy making those.
(Citations for this timeline are available on English Wikipedia.)
So I might expect that other local Democrats would steer clear of Monserrate after that. But instead, Monserrate has been regaining local power, and some people are willing to associate with him. Especially candidates.
In 2016, Irizarry ran for Brooklyn Civil Court, District 3, and lost in the Democratic primary. The NYC Bar Association rated him "Not Approved".
In 2017, Irizarry donated $200 to Monserrate's state-level political campaign. (You can confirm this by going to the NYS Board of Elections "search contributions by contributor" interface, plugging in "Edward Irizarry", and checking out his donations from July 11th, 2017.)
In 2021, Irizarry again ran for a judicial seat, again was "Not Approved" by NYC Bar Association, and again lost. During that election, his opponent accused him of physically intimidating one of her volunteers. Irizarry prevailed in at least part of his suit against her (I admit the legalese confuses me a bit), so I'm dubious that this incident happened as she alleged.
I've met and spoken with this candidate (again, at a local Democratic club meeting) and he said pretty reasonable things (although, understandably, he got a bit worked up when discussing the libel case). He is less affiliated with Monserrate than the candidates below, so I'm going to be less unhappy if he ends up on the bench. Still, I'm not comfortable voting for him, so I'll be writing in Jeena Shah instead.