AMERICA'S FIRST FEMALE MUSLIM JUDGE FOUND DEAD IN NEW YORK RIVER

The first African-American woman to be appointed to the New York State Court of Appeals, Sheila Abdus-Salaam, was found dead, floating on the shore of New York’s Hudson River on Wednesday.

Sheila and her husband, Gregory Jacobs

A graduate of Barnard College who received her J.D. from the Columbia University Law School, Abdus-Salaam, 65, grew up in a poor family of seven children in Washington, D.C. She said she was inspired to go into the legal field by watching episodes of “Perry Mason” on television as a child. She was first appointed to the appellate court by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2013. Before that, she served on Manhattan Supreme Court for 14 years and had been an attorney with the New York City Law Department and the city Office of Labor Services.

In addition to being the first Black female appellate judge in New York state, she was also America’s first female Muslim judge.

 The judge’s body was discovered fully clothed by witnesses on the Upper Manhattan side of the river just before 2 p.m., just about a mile from her home in Harlem. Her husband had reported her missing earlier in the day and was brought in to identify her