Supreme Court will hear from ex-judge on sexual innuendo complaint

A former municipal court judge accused on making an inappropriate sexual innuendo is set to appear before the New Jersey Supreme Court on October 12 when justices will address findings of the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct and a bid to dismiss a complaint.

Judge Hector Rodriguez presided over a December 2017 bail hearing in Franklin at which the defendant was released on her own recognizance.

The woman did not immediately understand whether she had to pay bail after being told by the court she was being released on her own recognizance, according to the panel’s filing and Rodriguez’s response.

She asked the judge whether she owed him anything.

“Not that you can do in front of all these people, no,” said Rodriguez, who served on the bench from 2014 to 2019.

Rodriguez denied that he was making a sexual innuendo, insisting that he was referring to monetary payment.

“You can’t take it out of context. You take a statement and flip it around, throw it in the air, put spice on it and put it back into that — it’s going to be the same when you — in the context of what I said. It was all about the monetary bail. And I — and she seemed confused,” he told the committee. “I said, well, you seem — I didn’t say confused. And she goes do I owe you anything and I was like not that you would give me in front of all these people referring to money, a monetary bail.”