Judge who told 'sex attack victim' to close her legs to avoid rape is fired

A judge who shot to notoriety after telling an alleged sex attack victim she should ‘close her legs’ to avoid being raped has been fired.

Superior Court Judge John Russo was permanently barred from presiding over a courtroom by New Jersey’s Supreme Court on Tuesday over the 2016 incident.

Supreme Court justices ruled unanimously in favor of disbarring Russo, saying he was guilty of ‘repeated and serious acts of misconduct’ and that his behavior meant it was ‘inconceivable’ he could ever preside over a domestic violence or sexual assault case again.

The justices had recommended last summer that Russo be removed from the bench, and a three-judge advisory panel agreed in January.

Russo had been on unpaid suspension while appealing those decisions. His attorney, Amelia Carolla, declined to comment Tuesday.

In court filings and at a hearing in December, Russo expressed remorse for his comments to the woman and for joking about the exchange with court personnel afterward.

He tried to argue that the Supreme Court’s penalty is excessive because an advisory panel on judicial conduct had last year recommended a three-month unpaid suspension.

The woman appeared before Russo at a 2016 hearing in Trenton, New Jersey, seeking a restraining order against a man she said sexually assaulted her. According to a transcript of the exchange, when the woman described her encounter with the man, Russo asked her, ‘Do you know how to stop somebody from having intercourse with you?’

When the woman answered yes and suggested running away, Russo chimed in with: ‘Close your legs? Call the police? Did you do any of those things?’

He cracked jokes with staffers about the exchange after the woman had left the courtroom, according to a report issued by the judicial conduct committee.

Russo insisted his questions were only a means of eliciting more information from the woman, but conceded that his choice of words was poor, and acknowledged his comments were wrong.

The report by the three-judge panel noted four instances of misconduct — including a matrimonial matter for which he did not recuse himself even though he knew someone involved.

The instances didn’t indicate dishonesty when taken separately, the panel found, but his testimony regarding two of the allegations ‘lacked candor, fabricated after-the-fact explanations for events, and displayed a lack of integrity that is unworthy of judicial office.’

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