Judge once suspended for pooping in a courtroom trash can due to health issues has died at age 63

A New York judge who was suspended from the bench in 2017 for needing to to poop in a courtroom trash can passed away last week.

White Plains City Court Judge Elizabeth Shollenberger died Thursday at the age of 63, according to court documents filed by her attorney.

Shollenberger, who was morbidly obese and suffered from an assortment of other related chronic health issues that included a digestive disorder, had been accused of being too unhealthy to serve as a judge, according to the New York Post.

She was appointed to the position by an all-Democratic city council back in 2017.

Sources told the city tabloid that Shollenberger was often too sick to go to work and couldn’t climb the three steps that led to her courtroom bench, even when administrators had a special railing installed.

‘She would come in and we would see the diarrhea running down her leg and to the floor,’ a courthouse worker told the New York Post in 2017. 

When she did make it into the city courthouse, her ‘gastric distress’ issue required her to have an emergency toilet handy – in this instance a courtroom trash can – in case she suddenly needed to relieve herself, which she did in a May 2017 incident.

‘In distress, she defecated in a plastic-lined wastepaper basket,’ court documents stated. ‘She then removed and tied the plastic liner bag and double-bagged it for disposal, but a small stain about the size of a quarter was visible on the carpet.’

‘Hysterical’ court staffers lined the courtroom area with yellow police tape clean it while wearing hazmat suits, according to Shollenberger’s lawsuit.  

Court systems spokesman Lucien Chalfen said administrators made many accommodations for Shollenberger, whose cases were reassigned to other judges by mid-August 2017.

Shollenberger, who was morbidly obese and suffered from a digestive disorder and an assortment of other related chronic health issues, had been accused of being too unhealthy to serve as a judge 

When Shollenberger did make it into the White Plains city courthouse (pictured), her ‘gastric distress’ issue required her to have an emergency toilet handy, in this instance a courtroom trash can, in case she suddenly needed to relieve herself, which she did in a May 2017 incident

‘The reassignments were made for her personal, and the public’s, health and safety at the Court,’ Chalfen stated.

City Judicial Review Committee member Mark Elliott said Shollenberger brought an oxygen tank with her and appeared ‘very fragile’ when she first came to interview for the position.

He accused Mayor Tom Roach of giving the job with a $175,500 annual salary to Shollenberger, his former campaign treasurer, as a political payoff.

‘No reasonable person could have looked at her as I did and thought that she could finish her 10-year term,’ Elliott told reporters.

In her lawsuit, Shollenberger accused courthouse workers of subjecting her to ‘extreme humiliation’ and discriminatory treatment due to her disabilities.

Her cause of death has not been released to the public. 

Her attorney indicated Friday that her estate would need time to decide whether or not it wants to proceed with her lawsuit.