The Hon. Karen Gopee is a judge for the Queens County Criminal Court in the Eleventh Judicial District of New York. She was appointed to the Criminal Court bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015. At the time of her appointment, Judge Gopee became the first Indo-Caribbean judge in New York.
Judge Gopee received her bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She went on to earn her J.D. from St. John’s University School of Law in 1997.
After graduating from law school, Gopee joined the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. During her seven-year tenure there, she helped prosecute special victim cases involving domestic violence and child abuse.
Prior to her appointment to the Criminal Court bench, Gopee had served as a principal court attorney to the Hon. Alex M. Calabrese, presiding judge of the Red Hook Community Justice Center, from 2005 to 2015.
She has been a member of the South Asian Bar Association of New York and served as co-chair and chair of the Criminal Justice Alternative Dispute Resolution and Restorative Justice Committee of the American Bar Association.
Judge Gopee, who was born in Trinidad, immigrated to the United States with her family when she was one year old.