Lehigh County’s most controversial judge, Maria L. Dantos, has retired and left her Allentown area home to take up permanent residence in Vermont.

Her decision came several months after her tongue-lashing of members of the Allentown Police Department, accusing them of lying under oath, brutalizing a defendant and also of behavior unbecoming officers when they high-fived each other outside of the courtroom after testifying against him.

Dantos had announced her plan to retire by the end of the year, but she said she decided to leave a few months early after she became a pariah in the police community and even among some county employees. She said that she felt betrayed by the harsh words in some law enforcement circles. She also hinted that she, at times, felt that her safety was at risk.

Dantos spent about 35 years in the Lehigh County judicial system, first as a public defender, then a prosecutor as first assistant district attorney and since 2007 as county judge.

She has had a reputation for speaking her mind, especially during the sentencing of convicted defendants who showed little or no remorse for their crimes.

In the February case of John Perez, 36, of Allentown, a county jury acquitted him of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. After the verdict, Dantos called out the police for their “shameful behavior,” saying they lied during testimony. Worse, she said recently, they were never held accountable.

Following Dantos’ 10-minute condemnation of their actions, the local Fraternal Order of Police leadership filed a complaint with President Judge Edward Reibman, who dismissed the complaint saying it was Dantos’ prerogative to comment on the case in the manner she did.

Dantos, who turns 60 early in September, earned her undergraduate degree at Rutgers University in 1982 and her law degree from Syracuse University’s College of Law in 1985.

In her role as prosecutor from 1989 until 2007, she was widely respected in police circles and received the Col. John J. Schafer Award for excellence in law enforcement.

Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, appointed Dantos, a Republican, to a vacant seat on the Lehigh County bench in June 2007 after she had won both nominations in the 2007 primaries. (Judicial candidates can cross-file as both Republican and Democrat). She then won a full 10-year term that November and was retained for another 10-year term by county voters in 2017.

Her successor will be appointed by Gov. Tom Wolf with the concurrence of the state Senate.