A Superior Court judge who managed to beat criminal charges of harboring her fugitive boyfriend now faces a judicial ethics complaint over the same matter.

Carlia Brady has been accused of breaking four canons of the Code of Judicial Conduct based on her dealings with police when they sought to arrest her then-boyfriend on an armed robbery charge in 2013. The complaint from the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct comes two months after the last charges were dropped in the criminal case against Brady.

Brady is accused in the ethics case of using the prestige of her office to advance her personal interests when she told a Woodbridge, New Jersey, police officer to remove handcuffs from her because she had been “vetted,” an apparent reference to the judicial selection process, the Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics said in its complaint, made public Monday. She also told the arresting officer “all this was unnecessary,” the complaint states.

The ethics charges were also based on misrepresentations Brady made to the police about when her boyfriend came to her house, and her failure to notify police when she had contacts with the boyfriend, even after she knew arrest warrants had been issued in his name, the ACJC said.

The complaint charges Brady with violating Canon 1, Rule 1.1, which requires judges to observe high standards of conduct; Canon 2, Rule 2.1, which requires judges to avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety; Canon 2, Rule 2.3(A), which requires judges to avoid lending the prestige of their office to advance private interests; and Canon 5, Rule 5.1(A), which requires judges to conduct their extrajudicial activities in a manner that would not demean the judicial office.

Her attorney in the criminal case, Timothy Smith of Caruso Smith Picini in Fairfield, New Jersey, issued a statement on Brady's behalf.

“We are confident that when the esteemed members of the Committee become fully versed in the salient facts, Judge Brady will resume her status as a rising and shining star within the New Jersey judiciary,” Smith's statement said. “She is honest to a fault and lives her life by one creed—always do the right thing. The circumstances surrounding her unlawful arrest should enhance, not diminish, her value as a judge in that she can now personally relate to the plight of the oppressed. She is a model of integrity and exactly the type of person who should be serving in a position of public trust in this state,” Smith said.

Brady's legal career has been on hold for the past five years after police in Woodbridge, where she lived, arrested her for harboring Jason Prontnicki, her live-in boyfriend. He was charged in April 2013 with the armed robbery of an Old Bridge pharmacy.

On June 9, 2013, Woodbridge officers told Brady that Prontnicki had a suspended driver's license and two arrest warrants, including the one for the Old Bridge armed robbery. She learned about his record after complaining to police that Prontnicki's brother had stolen her car. Brady was arrested on June 11, 2013, based on alleged contacts she had with Prontnicki after learning he was sought by authorities, including a one-hour visit he made to her home.

Brady was initially charged with official misconduct and harboring a fugitive. The official-misconduct charge was dismissed in a March 2016 decision that was affirmed by the Appellate Division in October 2017. The hindering charge was withdrawn after the Appellate Division ruled that Prontnicki, the only prosecution witness, could not be compelled to testify at her trial.

Brady was reinstated to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Civil Division, in March. The first Superior Court of New Jersey judge who was born in the Philippines, she took the bench in Middlesex County in June 2013.

Although she managed to beat the criminal charges after a long struggle, the judicial ethics case could be even more challenging, judicial ethics expert Marc Garfinkle of Morristown, New Jersey, said in March.

“Here, the criminal case was not really adjudicated. When the ACJC looks at it, not only do they have a different standard of proof, they don't really care what happens in criminal courts,” Garfinkle said. “They don't look at the disposition, they look at the facts of the case. They look at it with a clean slate,” he said.

Prontnicki was convicted of armed robbery and weapons offenses in connection with the pharmacy robbery and was sentenced to 10 years in jail in November 2016.