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MEAWW.COM / NEWS / CRIME & JUSTICE

New Jersey judge tells woman caught in love triangle to send her nude photos to Playboy magazine, apologizes

Alberto Rivas, who serves as Assignment Judge, was hearing a case the woman filed against her lover's wife to whom she had accidentally sent the photographs.
UPDATED AUG 19, 2019

A Middlesex County superior court judge is facing charges of violating judicial code after he made distasteful remarks during a Family Court hearing, advising a woman caught in a love triangle to divorce her husband and "take half his pension." 

Alberto Rivas, who serves as Assignment Judge in the county, also suggested the other woman in the triangle to send nude photos of herself to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. He apologized a day later for the remarks. 

"I regret the comments I made during the proceeding," Rivas said in a statement. "I felt the court was being manipulated, but I let my feelings about the case influence my language, tone, and demeanor, all of which were inappropriate."

Alberto Rivas, who serves as Assignment Judge in the county, suggested the other woman in the triangle to send nude photos of herself to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. (Facebook)

Rivas, who became a judge in 2010, is facing charges by the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct following a Family Court case on January 10 when a woman sought to retrieve a series of suggestive photos of herself she had sent to her former boyfriend after they were allegedly forwarded to his wife.

According to the report, the judge learned the former flame was afraid the wife would forward her pictures to her workplace. But Rivas told the woman her testimony was not believable. "I was born at night," the judge said, per a court transcript. "It was not last night."

Rivas said in his answer to the complaint that the case appeared to be a revenge porn or blackmail matter at first, but that it had become apparent the woman "was attempting to perpetrate a fraud on the court." The judge then labeled the woman's story as "a complete fabrication" and said she had "orchestrated" the "legal charade." He even questioned the woman's testimony in which she stated she did not know where her ex-boyfriend's wife worked.

"Do not sit there and tell me that you're having a relationship with a married man and that you don't know where his wife works," Rivas said, adding, "I've been doing this for a number of years. Better people have attempted to lie to me. You're not that good."

The judge then characterized the woman's complaint as "baloney" and advised her not to waste "judicial resources on this kind of malarkey." 

The woman in question declined to file for a final restraining order - which Rivas said he would be "happy to grant" - but said she no longer wanted to have any contact with the boyfriend.

In response, Rivas called the man a "knucklehead" and said he needed "to be brought down a notch." The judge then directed his attacks towards the wife, and asked her why she was still married to him. "I would suggest divorce and take half his pension," Rivas said, despite the couple being married for about 11 years with a 10-year-old daughter. 

The judge subsequently addressed the man, a corrections officer, who was sitting in court but wasn't a part of the proceedings between his former girlfriend and his wife.

"I wish you were up here," Rivas said, "because I am gunning for you, because you are despicable." When the wife agreed to return the photos within the next 24 hours, Rivas told her, "Your problem is with that knucklehead. But, it's clear that you folks have been involved in a triangle, and kind of like the Bermuda Triangle, it's deadly."

He then slammed both women for letting themselves "get played by this guy. Who I'm not going to call him a man because he does not deserve that title. This homo sapien."

But that wasn't the end of it. Rivas went on to mock the girlfriend at the end of the proceeding, saying "the only person you should be sending naked pictures to are (sic) to Hugh Hefner," adding, "He will pay you $100,000 for the use of them."  (Hefner founded Playboy magazine in 1953. He died in September 2017).

Responding to the furor over his words, Rivas said his comments "were not motivated by bias or prejudice" and "intemperate and not judicial in word or tone." 

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