Queens, NY - Judge of Mazoltuv Borukhova Case Steps Down from Other Custody Battle

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Queens, NY - A judge has decided to back out of a wrenching custody battle involving a 10-year-old boy whose TV commentator mom accused the judge of putting suicidal thoughts in the boy’s head.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Sidney Strauss announced Friday that he will hand off the case involving Fordham University Law professor Annemarie McAvoy to another judge.

Strauss didn’t address the nasty allegations lobbed by McAvoy, which caused the case to be moved to a Brooklyn judge for an emergency hearing two weeks ago.

“I think Judge Strauss has acted in a very wise way throughout a very difficult process,” said Justice Jeremy Weinstein, the administrative judge for the civil division of Queens Supreme Court. “He wants the case to be done. This matter has dragged on for many months, and that does nobody any good.”

Weinstein will pick a new judge Monday.

McAvoy claims that after Strauss refused to change custody in September, the youngster talked about killing himself or his father.

“I guess I’m the one who created the suicidal ideation, then,” Strauss said. “I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear.”

The same judge made another controversial custody switch in 2007, placing a toddler with her dad against the recommendations of all involved.

The girl's distraught mother, Mazoltuv Borukhova, then had the father killed. The custody change was presented as her motive at her murder trial.