Assemblyman demands judge reinstate his top aide’s license
Assemblyman Keith Wright pushed a court to reinstate his top aide’s driver’s license after she was busted for a 4 a.m. DWI in Harlem last month, where she dropped his name and threatened cops, law-enforcement sources said.
“I write to express how extremely important it is that this Court restore the driving privileges of my Chief of Staff, Ms. Jeanine Johnson,” he wrote in a July 7 letter obtained by The Post.
“Ms. Johnson is not only an indispensable member of my staff but she is the most senior member of my team.”
Officers spotted Johnson, 35, leaving the Corner Social bar at West 126th Street and Lenox Avenue at 4:07 a.m. on June 26, and driving off erratically, the sources said.
Johnson allegedly refused to get out of her 2001 Acura and name-dropped Wright.
She then threatened to call NYPD brass to get the responding officers in trouble, according to the sources.
While Johnson was pulled over, another car — carrying Wright staffer Cathleen McCadden, 28 — arrived at the scene.
McCadden also began haranguing the officer, the sources said.
Johnson was busted, arraigned and her license suspended.
That’s when Wright jumped in — with his “to whom it may concern’’ letter to Manhattan criminal court.
“Her availability to represent me at various meetings and attend functions throughout New York City and Albany, New York, are critical to the successful operation of my office,” Wright wrote in the letter printed on official State Assembly letterhead.
Despite her allegedly mouthy confrontation with the officers, Wright insisted that Johnson had the utmost respect for the law.
“I have known her [Johnson] for over ten years and always found her to be a dedicated public servant with reverence for the law,” the letter continued.
A judge is expected to rule on whether he’ll reinstate her license at her Sept. 9 court appearance.
Johnson is law co-chair of the New York County Democratic Party, helping oversee the screening panel that recommends judicial candidates to be selected by the party.
The assemblyman is the brother of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Wright, who is suing the city over a $115 ticket he got earlier this month after a traffic camera allegedly caught him driving in a bus lane. He claims he has photos proving he was just to the left of the lane. He submitted the images to the court, but they’re too blurry to show what lane he was in.
The Wright brothers’ late father, Bruce, was one of the most controversial judges in the city’s history.
The city police union gave him the nickname “cut-’em-loose Bruce’’ because of his controversial pattern of setting low bail for minority and low-income defendants.
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