The New Jersey Supreme Court suspended a Superior Court judge after he posted as many as 40 TikTok videos, many of which included explicit language or inappropriate conduct.
Superior Court Judge Gary N. Wilcox will be suspended for three months without pay; he will be eligible to return Jan. 8. Wilcox was accused of creating public TikTok videos, some in his judicial robe in his court chambers or partly undressed in his bed – containing profanity, graphic sexual references to female and male body parts, violence, misogyny, and racist terms, under the pseudonym “Sal Tortorella.”
Wilcox said in an August filing that he didn’t realize they would be available to the public and claimed many were “taken out of context.”
“He did not endorse any of the artists, their lifestyle, or their views,” Wilcox’s attorney, Gary Wille, said in response to a complaint. “He never intended to bring the judiciary into disrepute. Indeed, none of the postings were directed at anyone or had anything to do with any case or party before him. They were not made while performing judicial duties.”
In his response, Wilcox asked that he not be disciplined or receive a punishment not greater than an admonishment.
The TikTok videos were posted between April 11, 2021, and March 4, 2023.
Wilcox recorded a TikTok video wearing a “Beavis and Butt-Head” T-shirt while walking through the Bergen County courthouse with Get Down by Nas playing, according to a formal complaint lodged by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct.
“The song contains explicit lyrics concerning a criminal case and a courtroom shooting as well as derogatory and discriminatory terms, drug and gang references, and the killing of a doctor in a hospital who treated another gang member,” the original complaint says.
Wilcox, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Assistant U.S. Attorney, was nominated to the bench by Gov. Chris Christie in 2011. He received tenure in 2018 and is assigned to the criminal court division in Bergen County.
Wearing a suit and holding cash in his chambers, Wilcox “pretends to light a match while lip-syncing the following lyrics from Sure Thing by Miguel: “ If you be the cash, I’ll be the rubber band. You be the match, I will be a fuse, boom. Painter, baby, you could be the muse. I’m the reporter, baby, you could be the news. ‘Cause you’re the cigarette, and I’m the smoker. We raise a bet, ’cause you’re the joker.”
In another video recorded in his chambers, the 59-year-old Wilcox, in a T-shirt with his face close to the camera, lip-syncs lyrics from Jump by Rihanna: “If you want it let’s do it. Ride it, my pony. My saddle is waitin’, come and jump on it. If you want it, let’s do it.”
“By his conduct in posting these and similar videos to TikTok, (Wilcox) exhibited poor judgment and demonstrated disrespect for the Judiciary and an inability to conform to the high standards of conduct expected of judges,” the complaint stated.
The complaint alleged that Wilcox’s videos violate three rules of judicial canons, including one that “requires judges to observe high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the Judiciary may be preserved” and one that “requires judges to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety and to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the Judiciary.