I'm beginning to publish my recommendations for New York City's Democratic primary election, 2026. (Early voting starts tomorrow: Saturday, June 13th. Tuesday June 23rd is the final day to vote.)

In this post I'll cover the judge candidates in the one Queens judicial election in this primary. In other posts I'll cover the statewide Comptroller race and a few local-to-me state Assembly and Senate races, and several lesser-known local races for Democratic Party positions such as District Leader, State Committee, and so on.

[Edited and updated 22 June to revise my recommendation substantially!]

Also in this post, I unfortunately have to talk quite a bit about the odious Hiram Monserrate, because three of these candidates have ties to him.

(If you want to research all the candidates running in your area of New York City, you can refer to the official list of candidates from the New York Board of Elections.)

Queens County, Judge of the Civil Court (select up to 2)

In this race, there are four candidates running for two open seats.

My recommendations: Edmond Wong and a write-in. All three of the other candidates have serious problems. I'll re-use the write-in candidate my friend Kunal recommended last year in a similar situation: his CUNY Law professor Jeena Shah. [Edited 22 June to significantly change this recommendation to: Edmond Wong and Edward Irizarry.]

• Edmond Wong
• Edward Irizarry
• John Ciafone
• Julie Milner
• My sources

Candidate: Edmond Wong

Campaign site: https://www.edwongforcivilcourt.com/

NYC Bar Association rating: Approved

LGBT Bar Association rating: Failed to Appear

Queens County Bar Association rating: Qualified

This guy is basically a normal Democratic lawyer guy, and his answers to the Ballotpedia questionnaire are, accordingly, unobjectionable.

I spoke with him when he appeared at a local Democratic club and that was fine. Wong mentioned that the pandemic helped him realize/decide that he wanted to become a judge. And he discussed his experience helping protect elderly people from fraud and abuse, and his current role as a judicial officer which gives him a "quasi judge" level of responsibility regarding, for instance, kinship decisions.

Searching for Wong in various research databases turns up pretty much nothing, which is in my experience normal for run-of-the-mill lawyers running for judge for the first time.

Candidate: Edward Irizarry

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.

[Edited 22 June to add: A commenter ("G") on my all-in-one summary post made an important point: Ed Irizarry and Edmond Wong are the two candidates in this race who have gotten approvals from the NYC Bar Association. Irizarry is at least competent, if connected to an odious figure. The two other candidates are WHOLLY UNFIT to sit on the bench. This might be a close race. The top two vote-getters will win. Milner and Ciafone do have name recognition and will get some votes. It would be horrible for these write-ins to cost Irizarry the second spot, and thus lead to Ciafone or Milner winning.

Indeed this may be a close race. Based on the low early voting turnout, I think the final ballot count this year is likely to be comparable to the primary election from summer 2024, which was also pretty low-turnout. In 2024, 6827 votes separated the last winner from the next candidate.

And I've learned a few new things since I published this recommendation ten days ago. One: a lawyer told me he's seen Irizarry's work several times when working in the same court, and Irizarry does seem competent. Another: State Senator Jessica Ramos endorsed Irizarry as well as Wong. Another: based on various texts, comments, and other info I've gotten, far more people are reading this post than I had expected, based on my experiences from my similar post last year.

A protest vote that's just a drop in the bucket in the face of overwhelming odds is quite different from a protest vote that has a significant chance of leading to a bad outcome.

So, thanks for the harm reduction reminder, commenter G. I will reluctantly vote for Edward Irizarry.]

Candidate: John J. Ciafone

Campaign site: This guy is such a perennial candidate that his site is actually johnjciafonefornyccouncil.com (yes I'm deliberately not hyperlinking)

NYC Bar Association rating: Not Approved (in NYC Bar Association's ratings system, this may mean that their Judiciary Committee evaluated him and found him lacking, or it mean that he never filled out the questionnaire)

LGBT Bar Association rating: Approved

Queens County Bar Association rating: Not Approved (in QCBA's ratings system, this means that he did complete a questionnaire, and the Judiciary Committee investigated and interviewed him, and actively decided he didn't meet the qualification criteria; see the comments of my 2025 post for more details)

Ciafone is unsuitable for this position, as he was when I evaluated him last year. Ciafone was associated with a secretive neighborhood pressure campaign to keep a street unsafe instead of following through on a planned redesign. As a landlord, he got fined almost $400,000 for advertising his law practice on buildings he owns (without having a city permit to do so), and he was criticized by his neighbors for how he kept a local cinema empty for years (that article also has a quote from him about the menace of the progressive movement). He aims -- per his Ballotpedia answers -- to support victims and law enforcement, not "criminals", which is not the best attitude for a judge who's supposed to presume innocence. Quote from him: "We have a far left communist radical agenda to destroy our community by demonizing the police and stating that we don’t need jails." More about him in Queens Eagle's archives.

But also, he is heavily Monserrate-y.

When discussing Irizarry, I talked about how pernicious Monserrate is. His pals are trying to help him come back to power, through bidirectional endorsement, canvassing, fundraising, etc. Ciafone's candidacy is a perfect example of this. Ciafone is endorsed by the Roosevelt Democratic Club (Hiram Monserrate's club). Ciafone gave to Monserrate's current campaign for the State Senate (to confirm: go to the NYS Board of Elections "search contributions by contributor" interface, search for "John Ciafone", and check out his history from January 8th, 2026), and gave to Monserrate's city council campaign in 2024 and 2025. And Monserrate, Ciafone, and several other cronies went in together on petitioning (getting the signatures of registered voters in the relevant districts to fulfill requirements to get on the ballot). Here's a petition (with people's addresses blurred out) that a paid canvasser was getting signatures for in April of this year.

Details of that "Democratic Party Designating Petition - Queens County" include this list of candidates:

• Hiram Monserrate for State Senator
• Yonel E. Letellier Sosa for Assemblymember
• John C. Ciafone and Julie M. Milner for Judge of the Civil Court, Queens
• Johnny J. Vargas and Maria F. Giraldo for District Leaders
• Alberto Ossa and Gabriela Perez for Member of the Democratic State Committee

And: it appoints Sammy Muniz, Sonya Harvey, and Aninda Deb as a committee to fill vacancies (a note I add primarily to make it easier for other people websearching in the future to find their names associated with this crowd).

Incidentally, the deadline for filing those petitions for the primary election was in early April. On May 26th, I saw a canvasser who asked if I wanted to sign to support Julie Milner -- on his clipboard I saw a card for Milner and Ciafone, and -- folded over, but recognizable from a glimpse of an edge -- petition signature sheets. When I showed interest but also got out my phone, the canvasser decided he didn't actually want my signature, and refused to show me the sheets. I found out from someone else later that canvassers were getting petition signatures for the general election in November -- if Milner and Ciafone (and probably Monserrate) lose this primary, they'll run again in the fall.

So, odds are, I'll be pointing to this entry again in October. Great.

Ciafone ran and lost for a judgeship last year. And so did:

Candidate: Julie M. Milner

Campaign site: juliemilner.com (again, I'm deliberately not hyperlinking)

NYC Bar Association rating: Not Approved (which likely means she never submitted a questionnaire, as she's written about why she doesn't submit Bar Association approval applications)

LGBT Bar Association rating: Failed to Appear

Queens County Bar Association rating: did not appear before the committee and was not rated

Milner is also Monserrate-y. She's endorsed by his Roosevelt Democratic Club. She donated to his current campaign (to confirm: go to the NYS Board of Elections "search contributions by contributor" interface, search for "Julie Milner", and check out her history from December 17th, 2025). You can also learn a lot from her state, federal and city campaign contributions from the past seven years or so (sorry, the latter search includes some other Milners): Monserrate, yeah, and Monserrate cronies Charles Castro (his former chief of staff) and Rosa Sanchez (in leadership at his Democratic club and his "Restore Roosevelt Coalition"). Plus conservatives and Republicans like Brandon Castro, Richard Pacheco, Jason C. Murillo, Phil Wong, Yiatin Chu, and, in 2024, the pro-Republican WinRed PAC.

Milner's Ballotpedia answers have a lot of words about equality and treating everyone sensitively. But: "Democratic judicial candidate in Queens seemingly called for Biden’s execution online" (Queens Eagle, May 2, 2024) details social media posts she made. She replied in some blog posts (linking to Wayback Machine copies; she seems to have removed her blog from her campaign site): "NO! I did not call for banning LGBTQ books!", "Fake News & Dirty Politics", "Happy Pride", and "Blue Voter Guide is Trash". I believe none of those posts address the posts she made endorsing antivax and other conspiracy theories. There's a little more in the Eagle's coverage archive.

I do not want to elect, as a judge, someone who's demonstrated this level of poor judgment, both in what she's said in public and in the company she keeps.

My sources

Sources for local Bar Association evaluations: New York City Bar Association, LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, and Queens County Bar Association (which told me their evaluations via email). QCBA's ratings, verbatim from the email:

Edmond Wong and Edward Irizarry were both rated qualified.
John Ciafone was rated not approved.
Julie Milner did not appear before the committee and was not rated.

Additional sources beyond those linked in the post: personal conversations with Wong and Irizarry, personal conversations with petitioners for Ciafone and Milner, and paper promotional material for all four.

OK, that's done. Now, on to polishing and posting my recommendations for the Democratic party position elections, the legislative races, and the state Comptroller race. All before 9am tomorrow.