Bennett Barlyn

March 23, 2009 - 9:50am
INSIDE EDGE

Rivera-Soto: the bad boy of the N.J. Supremes

Embattled New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto

Roberto Rivera-Soto, an Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, is in trouble again: a prosecutor has accused him of violating a court order when he identified an investigator who used a racial slur in the Jayson Williams case.  Bennett Barlyn, an Assistant Hunterdon County Prosecutor, has filed an ethics complaint against Rivera-Soto.  The prosecutor wants to retry the former basketball star on manslaughter charges. 

The latest complaint could make it difficult for Rivera-Soto to win reappointment to the top court when his term comes up in 2011.

In 2007, the New Jersey Supreme Court censured Rivera-Soto for his role in a 2006 incident involving his son and a teammate on a high school football team.  The court agreed with a judicial conduct panel that Rivera-Soto "engaged in a course of conduct that created a risk that the prestige and power of his judicial office might influence and advance a private matter."  Rivera-Soto still faces a civil suit.

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