It looks like the brief and undistinguished judicial career of Willie Singletary may soon be over.

The state group that oversees judicial conduct recently chastised Judge Singletary for his pitch to bikers in 2007, urging them to pony up $20 for his campaign for Philadelphia Traffic Court.  In so many words, Singletary said: You help me out now with money and and I’ll help you out later when you appear in Traffic Court.

The whole scene was recorded and posted on You Tube and has caused Singletary a lot of grief.

There was too much quid pro quo in that pitch for the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline, which said in a ruling this week that Singletary was “the pure antithesis of the concept of a judge.”

The discipline court hasn’t handed out any punishment for the 28-year-old judge, but it seems likely it will boot him off the bench.

I have a postscript to this story.

Using public records, I usually check out candidates to see if they owe back taxes or have criminal records or have been involved in any misdeeds. (You’d be surprised how many owe back taxes.  Then again, you may not.)

In doing that check of judicial candidates in 2007, I came across records that indicated that a Willie Singletary owed about $11,000 in past-due traffic fines in Philadelphia — and that his drivers license had been suspended due to the volume of violations.  He had the same home address as the candidate.

I found it ironic that a Traffic Court scofflaw would be a candidate for Traffic Court.

I called Singletary and asked him if he was the same Willie Singletary who owed the fines.

No, he said. I am not.

I asked: Well, who is it?

He replied: It’s my brother.

And what’s his name, I asked.

He replied: Willie Singletary.

Singletary went on to say that his father — ala George Foreman — had named all his sons Willie.  And it was these Willies who racked up the tickets.  It wasn’t him.

He was the good Willie.  They were the bad Willies.

To say the least, I viewed that claim with a good deal of skepticism.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to sort out his alibi.  The records were confusing. There were different birth dates on some of them.  Being a columnist, I had to move on to my next column.  I turned over the information I did have to the investigative desk at The Inquirer, but they never got around to it.

It came out later that Willie Singletary the candidate was the same Willie Singletary who got the tickets.  He did not have brothers named Willie — though he  still does claim that one brother used his license and ID and got a lot of the tickets.

In short, he lied to me. (That’s not exactly good judicial conduct either.)

The fact that Singletary was a scofflaw did come out before the primary election in 2007 (His father paid his fines), but Singletary won easily — and it wasn’t because of the help from the bikers.

He drew the top ballot spot on the Democratic ticket, so out of 15 candidates running for 3 Traffic Court seats, he ended getting the most votes.

Singletary is a poster boy for the utter foolishness of electing local judges. No one knows who they are. A lottery determines ballot position.  If you get No. 1, you are virtually guaranteed election.

In 2007, Singletary got lucky and won an $84,000-a-year job. It looks like his luck has run out.