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Former judge Lynn Muller
New Jersey’s highest court agreed with the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, which found that Lynn Muller violated judicial ethics codes by, among other acts, yelling at a sergeant in front of his subordinates.
Muller, who has since moved to private practice, was Bergenfield’s sitting judge when she summoned police on May 17, 2008, records show.
The intruder she was calling about was actually Sgt. Warren Monroe, an investigator with the state Attorney General’s Office, who was there to serve a grand jury subpoena on Muller’s husband, Steven.
Muller told police that Monroe entered uninvited.
When a sergeant questioned her story, the committee said, she castigated him and said “she could not believe the Bergenfield Police Department would not protect their own judge.”
The committee was about to convene an ethics hearing in June when Muller dropped her argument that the facts were wrong. However, it says Muller continues to refute an official complaint that accuses her of trying to use her standing as a judge to convince local police that they should have arrested Monroe when he showed up at her and her husband’s home three years ago.
Monroe was investigating two letters of resignation from the Bergenfield Democratic Municipal Committee, one of which was considered by the panel in selecting a candidate to run for a state Senate seat. The complaint says both were alleged forgeries; both people accused of producing them were later exonerated.
Muller’s mother answered the door that May night and told the sergeant that Steven Muller and his wife were upstairs, according to the complaint. Monroe then walked up, called out Steven Muller’s name, and went back downstairs to wait, it says.
Her husband was talking with Monroe when Muller summoned police on a report of an intruder, even though the sergeant had shown her husband his official state identification, the complaint adds.
Monroe was driving away when Bergenfield police stopped him. They let him go after he explained the situation, the complaint says. Three officers, including a shift sergeant, went to Muller’s home.
There, Muller insisted they arrest Monroe. They told her they couldn’t.
According to the complaint, she insisted that her position as a judge demanded it.
It says she also accused the sergeant of “not knowing how to do his job” and later filed trespassing charges against Monroe.
Muller was replaced a year later.
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