HARRISBURG -- Former Pittsburgh City Magistrate Moira C. Harrington has been barred from holding any judicial office in the state for the next five years.

The decision was handed down yesterday by the Court of Judicial Discipline, after it held a 30-minute hearing into accusations that she disgraced her judicial office last year.

She was accused of taking parking tickets from the windshields of other cars and putting them onto her own windshield so she could park at expired meters in the area around Ross Street in Downtown Pittsburgh in February and March 2004.

Her lawyer, Tom Ceraso of Greensburg, didn't contest the charge, but pleaded for the board to give her just a public reprimand.

"Did she move tickets? Yes," he said. "Did she commit a criminal offense? No."

Ceraso contended that Harrington, who ended her career as a magistrate Dec. 31, has suffered enough from "weeks of being pilloried by the news media" and thus deserved just a verbal or written reprimand.

But Joseph A. Massa Jr., counsel to the state Judicial Conduct Board, which brought ethics charges against her last year, said there was a tougher punishment the board could render -- it could bar Harrington from ever running for or holding a judicial office in Pennsylvania again. The board settled on a five-year ban.

"It's a unique case,'' Massa said, since Harrington is no longer in office. "I don't see any other options'' for punishment.

Ceraso said Harrington has been punished by a torrent of negative publicity, which has caused her and her family great embarrassment.

"She has endured the most intensive TV campaign'' against her, he said. "Obviously, [her conduct] isn't something that judicial officers should condone. She has never denied what occurred. She admitted it ashamedly.''

Because of news media attention, Ceraso said, "She's like a deer caught in the headlights. She will live with what she did the rest of her life.''

Harrington was caught on videotape by a WPXI-TV news team last February and March putting parking tickets from other cars on the windshield of her own car so she could park at expired meters in Downtown Pittsburgh.

The offenses occurred "on a number of occasions over a two-week period," said Massa, adding that her conduct was totally improper for an officer of the court. Harrington ended up paying the tickets from the other cars, and the other motorists didn't get into any trouble, Ceraso said.

Harrington's old magistrate job doesn't even exist any more. The former seven-member city magistrates court was dissolved Dec. 31 and became part of Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

Harrington didn't attend the disciplinary hearing yesterday, leading Massa to claim she was insulting the board. "Her absence is deafening," he claimed.

Ceraso said no insult was intended. "She is so ashamed by what has occurred, she didn't want to subject herself to further public scrutiny," he said.

The eight-member disciplinary board includes Common Pleas Court judges, lawyers and non-lawyers.

Harrington has the option of appealing the punishment to the state Supreme Court.