The Hon. Raja Rajeswari is a judge for the Criminal Court of the City of New York in Richmond County. She was appointed to the bench by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015.
Rajeswari earned a B.S. in biology from the College of Staten Island in 1993. She then completed a J.D. at the Brooklyn Law School in 1998.
Prior to her appointment to the bench, Rajeswari served in the Office of the District Attorney of Richmond County. She entered as an assistant district attorney, where she was assigned to the Criminal Court Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau, and the Supreme Court Bureau. She eventually rose through the ranks, becoming a deputy bureau chief of the Sex Crimes Special Victims Bureau by the time of her appointment.
Rajeswari was born in Chennai, India and attended the Boston Matriculation Higher Secondary School. She immigrated to the United States when she was a teenager in 1988. As such, she was the first India-born woman to be appointed to a judgeship in New York City.
She is fluent in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, Urdu, and Arabic. She is also an accomplished Bharatanatyam and Kucchipudi dancer. She continues to perform at events and temples with her troupe from the Padmalaya Dance Academy.