Tuesday, June 26, 2012

FORMER ESSEX COUNTY JUDGE UNDER ETHICS INVESTIGATION

Star-Ledger reports:


ESSEX COUNTY — A Superior Court judge previously assigned to Essex County is accused of possible ethics violations in his effort to persuade a local school board to help pay the cost of a Pennsylvania summer camp for his girlfriend’s son, according to a complaint filed by a state judicial investigations panel.
The same complaint alleges the judge, Joseph Isabella, also provided improper legal assistance to the woman — now his wife and identified only as T.M. in court documents — during her divorce proceeding.
Isabella "created the risk that his judicial office would be an influential factor" when he solicited the Nutley Board of Education’s attorney and its school superintendent for help with the summer camp matter, according to the five-page complaint filed last month by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. It also alleges he used official judicial stationery in a fax sent to the board, which ended up paying for a portion of the camp, whose full tuition was several thousand dollars. Nutley was required to provide summer sessions for T.M.’s special needs son, but not out of state.


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