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A panel called the Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Activities put the kibosh on Sicari’s standup act in 2010, claiming his material could imply bias and a lack of impartiality.
Sicari — whose name in Italian means “hit man” — nonetheless met his commitment for a three-show gig at Caroline’s while waiting for a booking with the state’s highest court.
Tomorrow he finally takes his act on the road — to Trenton.
He just has to be careful to resist any urges to tell the justices: “I never forget a face. But in your case, I’ll make an exception.”
It’s amusing that Sicari once worked with Frank Lucianna, one of the most entertaining defense attorneys playing North Jersey courtrooms today. Sicari was also a prosecutor and has done mostly criminal defense work solo, first in Ridgewood and then Paramus.
Sicari has played several clubs, including Caroline’s in Times Square (photo, above), been in commercials, and warmed up audiences at “The Colbert Report.” Sicari also produced the stand-up film “Vinsanity,” which won an award at a Los Angeles film festival several years back.
Yet it’s his role ABC’s “Primetime: What Would You Do?” in which he portrayed a racist and homophobic character in a “Candid Camera”-type of set-up that seemed to particularly unnerve the nine-member committee.
South Hackensack officials knew that Sicari, 43, moonlighted — same as several other attorneys, some of whom play in bands, others who operate nightclubs and other businesses — when they appointed him to the part-time municipal judgeship in 2007.
“In his comedy, he doesn’t get into the fact that he’s a lawyer. He doesn’t get into the fact that he’s a municipal court judge,” defense attorney E. Drew Britcher, of Britcher, Leone & Roth in Glen Rock, told the New Jersey Law Journal. “Most of his performances are driven by improvisation and there is never a mention of his daytime profession.
“Judge Vincenzo Sicari and Vince August are two separate and distinct entities running parallel with one another,” Britcher said.
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