PENNSYLVANIA RECORD

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended three judges who sat in

Philadelphia Traffic Court, a move that came in the wake of sweeping federal indictments that were recently unsealed against numerous members of the minor judiciary.

In separate per curiam orders, the high court suspended Traffic Court Judges Michael Sullivan and Michael Lowry, as well as Mark Bruno, a Chester County magisterial district judge who occasionally hears Philadelphia Traffic Court cases.

All three jurists were relieved of all judicial and administrative duties without pay pending further action by the Supreme Court.

Sullivan, Lowry and Bruno were among a handful of current and former Philadelphia Traffic Court judges who were named in federal indictments and criminal informations last week unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The federal government charges that the jurists committed fraud and conspiracy in connection with an alleged “ticket-fixing” scheme in which they would routinely dismiss traffic citations for family, friends and the politically connected.

The high court’s decision came a day after the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board filed petitions for interim suspensions without pay in the Court of Judicial Discipline requesting the immediate suspension of Sullivan, Lowry and Bruno, along with Senior Traffic Court Judges Fortunato Perri, Sr., Kenneth Miller, and H. Warren Hogeland in connection with their federal charges in the ticket-fixing scandal.

The Supreme Court has not yet appeared to have taken action on the other judges named by the Judicial Conduct Board.