Judge accused of lip-syncing racy songs in chambers and in bed in TikTok videos
Judge Gary N. Wilcox of Bergen County, New Jersey, has been accused of lip-syncing songs with graphic sexual references in inappropriate videos that he posted to TikTok in his chambers, in the courthouse and in his bed. Image from Shutterstock.
A New Jersey judge is facing an ethics complaint alleging that he lip-synced songs with graphic sexual references in inappropriate videos that he posted to TikTok under the alias “Sal Tortorella.”
The accused judge, Judge Gary N. Wilcox of Bergen County, New Jersey, is 58 years old, his lawyer, Robert Hille, told the New York Times.
The music detailed in the complaint is by “mainstream performers,” Hille said. “This is music that’s out there in the public. And clearly it elicits a different response depending on who is listening.”
Other publications covering the ethics complaint include Law360, the New York Post, Law.com and the New Jersey Monitor.
Wilcox is accused of lip-syncing the songs in his chambers, in the courthouse and in his bed, according to the June 30 ethics complaint by New Jersey Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. His video apparel included his judicial robes and a Beavis and Butt-Head T-shirt. In the bed video, he was only partly dressed.
The TikTok videos included references “to violence, sex and misogyny,” the ethics complaint said. Some “contained profanity, graphic sexual references to female and male body parts and/or racist terms.”
Wilcox is a Harvard Law School grad, a former federal prosecutor and a former partner at McCarter & English, according to Law.com and Law360. He was admitted to the bar in 1989 and is currently assigned to the criminal court.
Wilcox posted 40 videos to TikTok in a public format from April 2021 to March 2023. Eleven of the videos “were inappropriate and brought disrepute to the judiciary,” the ethics complaint said.
The ethics complaint alleges that in the videos, Wilcox:
- Lip-synced “Jump” by singer Rihanna, with these words: “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.”
- Lip-synced the words, “All my life, I’ve been waiting for somebody to whoop my ass. I mean business! You think you can run up on me and whip my monkey ass? Come on. Come on!”
- While sitting in a car and wearing a freedom of speech T-shirt, lip-synced these words: “Go ahead baby. You hittin’ them corners too g-ddamn fast. You gotta slow this mothaf- - -a down. You understand? I almost spilled my [Cognac] on this 200-dollar suit.”
- Posted a video with text on the screen that read, “When an ex-girlfriend calls you ‘Santa’ because of your new white beard.” “Touch It” by rapper Busta Rhymes, which contains graphic lyrics, plays in the background.
- Recorded himself walking in the courthouse while “Get Down” by rapper Nas played in the background. According to the ethics complaint, 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.”
Hille told the New York Times that he didn’t think that there was any desire to do harm.
“Hindsight is 20-20,” he said.
