Judge Raja Rajeswari

Judge Raja Rajeswari is an Acting Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Richmond County, where she presides over felony criminal cases. She was appointed to the New York City Criminal Court by Mayor Bill de Blasio in April 2015, becoming the first South Asian woman appointed to the bench in New York, and was reappointed to a term running through 2028. Prior to her appointment, she served for sixteen years as a prosecutor in the Richmond County District Attorney's Office, including four years as deputy chief of the Special Victims Unit, with a focus on cases involving women and children. Judge Rajeswari immigrated to the United States from Chennai, India as a teenager and is a graduate of the College of Staten Island and Brooklyn Law School. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancer and speaks Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu, and Sinhala.