Hon. Maria L. Dantos (Ret.) was a judge for the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania. She was appointed to the bench by former Governor Ed Rendell in June 2007. Dantos retired in 2020.
During her judicial tenure, she presided as the supervising judge of the Investigating Grand Jury.
Dantos received a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 1982. She went on to complete a J.D. at Syracuse University College of Law in 1985.
Prior to her judicial career, Dantos had worked at the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office since 1989. Beginning there as an assistant district attorney, she rose through the ranks, serving as a deputy district attorney, chief deputy district attorney, and then, in 2001, she was appointed first assistant district attorney. Additionally, she was the supervising attorney for the Lehigh County Investigating Grand Jury and the Homicide Task Force.
Before joining the District Attorney’s Office, Dantos worked for three years as a public defender in Lehigh County (1986 to 1989).
She was an instructor for the Allentown Police Academy, the Pennsylvania District Attorney’s Association, and the Pennsylvania Bar Institute.
Dantos received the Colonel John J. Schafer Award for excellence in law enforcement in 2007, becoming the first woman to receive the award.
She was registered as a Republican.