Metro

NJ judge reprimanded for sexual relationship with stripper

A jiggle-joint-loving New Jersey judge was publicly reprimanded by the state’s Supreme Court for having a fling with a stripper who was a victim in a domestic-violence case over which he presided.

Judge Roman A. Montes, who works in municipal courts in Elizabeth and Rahway, was censured for violating three judicial codes of conduct after he had a sexual relationship with a stripper he met at Rahway club Breathless, according to a court opinion published Wednesday.

The documents said Montes wooed the unidentified dancer on Dec. 11, 2012, less than two weeks after she appeared before him in court on a domestic-dispute case involving her boyfriend.

She danced for the sleaze-bag jurist, even though she admitted to him that she recognized him from court, and he left that night with her phone number.

The next day, Montes requested that the dancer’s case be transferred to a court in nearby Clark. While that transfer was pending, the two texted back and forth discussing dinner plans, as well as the domestic-violence case.

The dancer asked the judge if there was “anything you could do” about the case and if he could “speak to [the judge in Clark],” court papers state.

Montes, who has practiced law since 1992, claimed he continued to communicate with the dancer only because he didn’t “want to be in a position . . . that she was making any claims that I was trying to influence the judge from Clark or anyone else,” the documents said.

“Despite these concerns, however, [Montes] continued to pursue a relationship with the victim,” said the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct in court papers.

Investigators launched a probe into the horndog judge after the stripper’s boyfriend filed an ethics complaint claiming Montes pursued his girlfriend after meeting her in court.

Shortly after the domestic-violence issue was tossed, Montes admitted to a Clark judge he had the case transferred because he had an “intimate relationship with the dancer that was sexual in nature.”

Montes could not be reached, and his lawyer did not immediately return messages seeking comment.