Ernestine Anderson-Trahan Admonished

Ernestine "Teena" Anderson-Trahan, judge of the Second City Court for the City of New Orleans, admitted in a signed agreement with the Louisiana Judiciary Commission that she violated multiple provisions of the state's Code of Judicial Conduct by significantly underreporting the income she earned officiating weddings on her annual judicial financial disclosure statements. According to the Commission's Amended Notice of Hearing and the resulting Deferred Recommendation of Discipline Agreement, Anderson-Trahan performed hundreds of cash-only marriage ceremonies each year from 2013 through 2017. For 2014 through 2017, she initially reported her wedding income to the Louisiana Supreme Court as falling between $5,000 and $24,999 per year; after an investigation, she later amended those filings to reflect actual income between $25,000 and $100,000 per year — in some years more than $45,000, several times her originally reported figures.

In 2015, she also failed to report separate legal-fee income on her original disclosure statement. The Commission found this conduct violated Louisiana Supreme Court Rule XXXIX and Canons 1, 2, 2A, 3B(1) and 6C(1) of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Under the agreement, signed in April and May of 2023, the Commission admonished Anderson-Trahan and agreed to defer any discipline recommendation to the Louisiana Supreme Court for three years, provided she completes additional judicial-ethics training, files timely and accurate disclosures going forward, and incurs no further meritorious complaints; she has already consented, in the event of default, to a public censure by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Separately, Anderson-Trahan was federally indicted in 2018 on four counts of tax fraud tied to the same underreported wedding and legal-fee income; that criminal case ended in a hung jury in November 2022, and she was acquitted in February 2023 after a federal judge granted a post-trial motion for acquittal. The acquittal resolved the separate federal tax charges only; it has no bearing on the judicial ethics violations she admitted to in the Commission agreement.