N.J. Judge Charged With Misuse of Office in Dispute Over Vandalizing of Son's Car

Charles Toutant12-14-2009

An ethics complaint made public on Thursday alleges that Phillipsburg, N.J., Municipal Judge Dennis Baptista used the power of his office to gain an advantage in a private dispute with another parent over damage to his son's car.
New Jersey's Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct charges that after the car was vandalized by another student at Phillipsburg High School, Baptista improperly enlisted the help of the town's police department, whose officers regularly appear before him, to make contact with the parent of the other student, whom he chastised verbally and then sued. [Full text of complaint (pdf)]
Baptista, Phillipsburg's sole municipal court judge since 2007, calls the complaint "a gross distortion of the truth" and says he never sought to benefit from his judicial office.
But the case arises while echoes still ring of Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto's 2007 brush with ethics authorities for similarly intervening in a police investigation and municipal court proceeding over a complaint that another student was bullying his son. Rivera-Soto was censured for his conduct.
Baptista is, in fact, charged with violating the same Code of Judicial Ethics canons as Rivero-Soto -- notably Canon 2B, which requires judges to avoid lending the prestige of their office to advance the private interests of others.
The grievant -- the mother of the student that had damaged the car -- alleged that Baptista berated her and tried to use his position as a municipal court judge to intimidate her and manipulate would become his civil suit against her. At an informal conference before the ACJC last June, Baptista admitted that the only reason he sued the mother was to obtain "leverage" to settle the case.
The damage to the car, which was owned by Baptista, occurred on Oct. 29, 2008, allegedly at the hand of an older student, K.H. Baptista's son C.B. filed a report with the Phillipsburg police.
On Oct. 31, Baptista went to the police station to ascertain the status of his son's report and to seek police assistance in contacting K.H.'s parents, claiming he did not know how to reach them. Officer Robert Marino drove to the home of K.H. but no one was there. He later phoned and left a message.
Also on Oct. 31, Baptista spoke by telephone with another police officer, Justin Koeller, about the incident and his difficulties in contacting K.H.'s parents, though he told Officer Koeller that he wanted to be treated like a "normal citizen," according to the complaint.
On Nov. 1, K.H.'s mother, J.H., returned Marino's call, and he told her that "Judge Baptista" had been trying to reach her. The complaint says that when Baptista finally spoke to J.H., he criticized her for failing to supervise her son and said she should spend more time parenting and less in her involvement in the Kiwanis organization.
Interviewed Thursday, Baptista said he had no intention of seeking officers' help when he visited the police station but was only seeking a copy of the incident report, which was not finished. He says "one or two officers" approached him in the lobby and mentioned the vandalism, and he told them that high school officials had refused to give him the phone number of K.H.'s parents.
"I never solicited their help or told them how to conduct their investigation. All I wanted to do was call up the parents and work it out," Baptista said.
On Nov. 14, Baptista sued K.H. and J.H. in Special Civil Part in Warren County for damage to the vehicle. He sent notice of the suit on Nov. 19 to Philip Carchman, then acting administrative director of the courts. The case was eventually transferred to Middlesex County by order of Chief Justice Stuart Rabner and was mediated and settled. Baptista won't say for how much. J.H. later filed her grievance.
The ACJC charges that Baptista's request for assistance in making contact with the family was pretextual because their phone number was published in the phone book and was readily available.
What's more, Baptista showed a lack of candor he insisted at the informal conference that the family's number was unavailable, the committee said. And when he spoke to the other student's mother, identified as J.H., he criticized her parenting skills and sought to embarrass her by comments about membership in the Kiwanis, the ACJC said.
But Baptista said Thursday that he didn't look up the family in a telephone directory because he was unsure how to spell their last name, thought the parents might have a different name than K.H., and did not know where the family lived.
As for his conversation with J.H, he says it "was in my capacity as a private citizen-slash-parent-slash-litigant. It was somebody else's job that day to be the even-handed person."
Baptista, in addition to his part-time judgeship, chairs the workers' compensation practice at Javerbaum, Wurgaft, Hicks, Kahn, Wikstrom & Sinins, a firm based in Springfield, N.J.