Former Judge Alice Bruno, who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary while missing more than two years of work for what she called stress-induced health problems, has retired after qualifying for a disability pension.

The Judicial Review Council, which investigates judicial misbehavior, qualified Bruno for the disability pension. The state Comptroller’s office said Wednesday that she received her first, bi-monthly check of $4,858.94 on Nov. 30 toward an annual benefit of $116,614.56.

Her lawyer, Jacques Parenteau, declined to discuss the matter.

Bruno became an embarrassment for the judicial branch late in 2021 when the Courant reported she had been paid as much as $400,000 for about 2½ years without going to work.

She claimed she had health problems that became debilitating because of an abusive and hostile work environment created by her superiors. Internal communications showed that frustrated judicial administrators grappled with her absences, which they considered a problem even before she took a medical leave in late 2019 and stopped working altogether.

“No plan is necessary to ‘get you on the bench!’ It is what judges do — they get on the bench and decide cases. In order to get on the bench though you must be at work,” wrote Chief Court Administrator Judge Patrick L. Carroll III in an email to Bruno. He described Bruno’s persistent truancy as an “abuse of office.”

It took the state Supreme Court to close what became a strange, years-long standoff between employer and employee. Earlier this year, the court ordered Bruno to appear before it in person and answer why it should not suspend or remove her. It was the first time in its history the court initiated a proceeding to remove a constitutionally appointed judge for behavior that reflected poorly on the judiciary.

She told the court that hostility from judicial administrators caused pre-existing health problems to worsen to the point that she had to schedule medical appointments during the hours of court operation and was unable to complete assignments or finish writing decisions.

“It evolved,” she told the justices. “And it was a culmination of many things, many different kinds of feedback from the branch and being told that I was not able to do the job. It was difficult to continue and try to do a job that you are being told you cannot do.”

Bruno told the justices it was her hope to reach some sort of accommodation that would allow her to work at a location relatively close to her home and among supportive colleagues. She claimed judicial administrators refused to accommodate her and instead assigned her to a Waterbury courthouse where, in her view, the administrative judge was hostile to her.

The justices ordered an investigation by then newly appointed Inspector General Robert Devlin, who ultimately negotiated an exit strategy with Bruno. Under the agreement, made public by the Supreme Court, Bruno agreed to a voluntary suspension without pay effective June 2 while pursuing a disability pension. If the Judicial Review Council approved, she agreed to take it and retire immediately.

Privacy laws kept a description of Bruno’s medical condition from becoming public. But at one point, Parenteau said she had undergone a specific procedure and she suggested in an affidavit that the judicial branch was pressing for a competency review.

Former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy appointed Bruno to the Superior Court in 2015. Before that she worked as a court clerk, took a brief appointment as an election worker in the Secretary of the State’s office and was executive director of the Connecticut Bar Association.