N.J. court censures a justice

The New Jersey Supreme Court censured Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto yesterday for his involvement in a dispute between his teenage son and a teammate on the Haddonfield Memorial High School football team.

The censure has no effect on Rivera-Soto's job status or pay, but it was the first time a sitting New Jersey justice had been disciplined in 17 years.

Earlier this month, a judiciary ethics panel recommended that Rivera-Soto face a censure for improperly using his office.

The Supreme Court agreed with that finding in a 5-0 decision that quoted from the judiciary panel's recommendation nearly verbatim. In the censure, the court did not find that Rivera-Soto abused his office, writing instead that his actions created "an appearance of impropriety."

Rivera-Soto's conduct "created a risk that the prestige and power of his judicial office might influence and advance a private matter," the court said.

Justice John E. Wallace Jr. and Rivera-Soto did not participate in the decision.

The court also could have given Rivera-Soto a reprimand, suspended him, or removed him from the court - or done nothing.

Rivera-Soto's attorney, Bruce P. McMoran, said neither he nor his client would comment on the censure.

The case began when Rivera-Soto accused his son's teammate Conor Larkin of harassing and head-butting his son. Larkin, the captain of the team, was a senior. Rivera-Soto's son, Christian, was a sophomore.

Rivera-Soto filed an assault complaint against Larkin after Larkin received only a warning from the school.

Conor Larkin's father, J. Ward Larkin, said yesterday that he was disappointed in the Supreme Court's ruling. He noted that the high court, in a decision written by Rivera-Soto, recently suspended a Mercer County Superior Court judge for 30 days for using harsh language with jurors, judges and a defense attorney.

"I'm disappointed that the same ethical standards were not upheld for him," Larkin said. "I wanted him to be suspended for the same 30 days."

Conor Larkin has notified Rivera-Soto that he might sue him, and his father said they were interviewing Pennsylvania lawyers to take the case.

Rivera-Soto acknowledged that he called the Haddonfield police chief on his cell phone about filing charges against Conor Larkin, and later contacted the acting Camden County prosecutor and several judges about the case.

Throughout the process, Rivera-Soto was accused of referring to his judicial position, and he told the acting prosecutor "to make certain that his complaint received attention," according to a state ethics complaint.

The two boys ended up in Camden County Family Court, but the case was dropped after they finished the school year without any more problems.

The ethics complaint said Rivera-Soto once showed up at the Camden courthouse for a hearing in his son's case only to have an employee tell him the hearing had been postponed.

Rivera-Soto asked the employee "if she knew who he was, and handed her his business card," the ethics complaint said.

Rivera-Soto said he was not seeking preferential treatment for his son, and he gave the court employee his business card merely to provide "a convenient method by which she could reach him during business hours."

But later, the justice said he was "profoundly sorry" for his actions.

"In hindsight, I realize that some of these actions have had the effect of creating the appearance of impropriety," he wrote in a letter to the state ethics committee.

Ward Larkin also criticized Rivera-Soto's judicial rulings, saying they were indicative of "the way he does business." He said that Rivera-Soto had been the lone dissenter in a number of cases.

"He's a contrarian in the neighborhood, and he's a contrarian on the bench," Larkin said.

Rivera-Soto, 53, was a little-known Republican who had built his career representing casinos before former Gov. Jim McGreevey tapped him to become the high court's first Hispanic justice in 2004.

Yesterday, he became only the second sitting justice to be disciplined since 1974, and the first since Robert L. Clifford was given a public reprimand in 1990 for driving while intoxicated.