Theresa Whelan, former Suffolk Surrogate and Family Court judge, dies at 60

Theresa Whelan, a former Suffolk County Family Court judge and later the county's surrogate, known for presiding over cases involving tough family issues with compassion, died last week at age 60.

Whelan, of Wading River, died of brain cancer last Monday at East End Hospice in Westhampton Beach, said her husband, Thomas Whelan, a state Supreme Court justice in Suffolk.

Theresa Whelan became a Family Court judge in 2008 and was the court’s supervising judge from 2016 to 2018. She heard primarily child abuse and neglect cases and presided over the Family Treatment Court, a program designed to help unite families affected by alcohol and drug use.

Andrew Crecca, district administrative judge of Suffolk County, said Family Court judges deal with “heartbreaks and difficult family situations” and Whelan made it “a very caring court.”

“It's important, as a Family Court judge, that you're not just administering the law but that you are doing so with compassion and care for the children and the families that come before you,” he said. “I think she just really embodied that.”

Whelan became the Suffolk County surrogate in 2019, following a hard-fought election in which backlash over a cross-endorsement deal for the post led to a contentious race. The surrogate oversees estate cases, trusts and guardianships for minors or those not legally competent. In June, she resigned from the judgeship due to the illness, less than four years into her 10-year term.

“She definitely has left her mark on Suffolk County judiciary and probably countless families and individuals who've gone before her,” said Suffolk Democratic chairman Richard Schaffer, who first met Whelan when they were teenagers working in political campaigns.

Whelan was born on Jan. 21, 1962, in Queens and her family later moved to North Babylon before settling in Sayville, her family said.

Whelan came from a prominent Democratic family. Her mother, Joan Bryant, is a former Suffolk deputy elections commissioner and was a major fundraiser for the late party chair Dominic Baranello. Whelan met her husband at a political fundraiser.

In the courtroom, attorneys who had cases over which Whelan presided said she was careful and deliberate in her decision-making and compassionate toward litigants.

“I would see people coming in that were drug addicts [who] had lost their children, sometimes one, two, three times because they would relapse,” said Lynn Poster-Zimmerman, a Huntington family law attorney who knew Whelan for 25 years.

“No matter what people went through, she didn't judge them,” Poster-Zimmerman said. “She also wasn’t one to give children back to someone who couldn't handle them. But she really tried to understand what people were going through.”

Off the bench, Whelan was active in professional organizations and mentored others. She was a member of the Suffolk County Bar Association and a past president of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association.

In the summer of 2019, LaToya James, a Hauppauge family law and criminal defense attorney, said she got a call from Whelan asking her to consider taking Surrogate's Court mediation training. She said Whelan also reached out to the Amistad Long Island Black Bar Association so they could spread the information to its membership.

“The bench, just at large, has lost a great person,” James said.

Whelan received a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in policy analysis and public management, both from Stony Brook University. She earned her law degree from Albany Law School in 1988. Before she was elected a judge, Whelan was a law clerk for several state Supreme Court justices in Nassau and Suffolk counties for more than 17 years.

In addition to her husband, Theresa Whelan is survived by her son, Joseph Whelan of Center Moriches; her daughter, Erin Meyers of Ridge; her mother, Joan Bryant of both Sarasota, Florida, and Sayville; brothers Jack Bryant of Bay Shore and Christopher Bryant of Sayville; sisters Vaughn Bogucki of Florida and Victoria Yule of Northport; and a granddaughter, Andrea Meyers of Ridge. Whelan was predeceased by her father, John Bryant.

A funeral service was held Monday morning at Wading River Congregational Church in Wading River.

By Dandan Zou

dandan.zou@newsday.com@DandanZou

Dandan Zou covers education for Newsday. Previously, she worked for a community newspaper in Maryland and a personal finance magazine in Washington, D.C.