Justices’ Disclosures Reveal Souter’s Kindle, Sotomayor’s Dentist Debt
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may be the wealthiest member of the U.S. Supreme Court, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor may owe more than she has in her checking and savings accounts.
Those are some of the disclosures made on 2009 financial forms released on Friday, according to stories in the New York Times and CNN. Sotomayor listed assets between $15,000 and $65,000 in Citibank savings and checking accounts, CNN says. But she owes between $15,000 and $50,000 for dental work and as much as $60,000 to credit card companies, according to the Times.
Ginsburg, on the other hand, has assets as high as $45 million.
The disclosure forms also listed gifts to the justices. Sotomayor reported gifts valued at $4,500 that included an $1,125 watercolor of “three owls,” two judicial robes, a $500 pen, a $565 day spa gift certificate and $500 in personal shopping services, according to CNN and The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. Owls are known as a judicial symbol, the CNN story says.
Meanwhile, retired Justice David H. Souter received a Kindle electronic reader from a former law clerk, Julius Genachowski, now the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, according to CNN and the BLT. Souter is an avid reader, but he is known for his aversion to technology.
