Allegations that a municipal judge skirted courtroom procedure, cursed at a court staffer and engaged in sometimes-harassing ex parte phone discussions with a defendant has led to ethics charges and a suspension from the bench.

Aishaah Rasul, a part-time judge on the Englewood Municipal Court, was suspended by order of the state Supreme Court Wednesday pending the outcome of her ethics case.

The Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct's formal complaint alleges that Rasul "demonstrated a lack of competence in the law," "abused her judicial office" and "contravened statutory requirements for the imposition of a probationary sentence," among other wrongs. The complaint, which charges Rasul with violation of numerous judicial canons, is dated Tuesday and was made public Wednesday along with the court order.

Rasul couldn't be reached at her listed number in the judiciary's online attorney index. A message left with the Englewood Municipal Court wasn't immediately returned Wednesday.

According to the complaint, Rasul, admitted in New Jersey in 1990, has sat on the Englewood court since December 2018 and spent nine years before that as municipal public defender in the city. The case at issue began in September 2018, in the form of citizen complaints charging simple assault, in which a woman claimed she was assaulted by two others.

Rasul conducted a trial last March, at the conclusion of which she found one defendant guilty, but entered no finding for the other because of that defendant's enrollment in the state's drug court program and the effect that a conviction would have on the enrollment, according to the complaint, which said Rasul instead placed that defendant on "in-house probation," in which Rasul and the court would monitor her.

Rasul required the defendants to pay the victim in cash for property damage the victim sustained, despite having previously issued no-contact orders that prohibited the defendants and others from contacting the victim, the ACJC said.

Rasul later entered a guilty finding for the drug court defendant but then "erroneously advised her that once she made the court ordered restitution payments … Respondent would 'dismiss or maintain [the] charge,'" the ACJC said.

"Respondent, in an apparent attempt to avoid recording the guilty verdicts in the court's automated case tracking system, instructed both defendants to make the required restitution payments in cash to [the victim] directly or to her mother at a predetermined meeting place in the courthouse," the complaint said. "This procedure conflicted with not only the standing 'No Contact' orders … but with longstanding municipal court procedure, which provides for the payment of fees, fines and costs, in any form, to the court for distribution through the court's automated case tracking system. There is no procedure by which the court could direct litigants to meet in the courthouse to exchange restitution payments."

Last July, the court's administrator "advised Respondent that there was no such thing as 'in-house probation' and that the defendants may not make restitution payments to the victim directly at the courthouse," the ACJC charged. "Admittedly agitated, Respondent told the Court Administrator to 'get off [her] fucking back.'"

And later, when the victim didn't receive the payment from the drug court defendant, Rasul made two ex parte phone calls to that defendant, and also spoke to that defendant's mother; and the defendant later called Rasul in a phone call that the defendant recorded, according to the complaint.

The complaint said Rasul, by her "conduct in directing court staff to withhold documenting the court's disposition of the [simple assault] matters in the court's automated case tracking system for the benefit of the litigants … obstructed the proper administration of justice," and "allowed her concern for [one defendant's] status in drug court to influence her judicial decision-making."

The ex parte discussions, too, were improper, and Rasul "engaged in harassing and injudicious conduct" in pushing the defendant to make the restitution payment, the ACJC said.

Rasul's "remark to the Court Administrator … and use of an expletive … was discourteous and inappropriate" and violated rules governing judge comportment, added the complaint, which also charged that Rasul fell short in following trial procedure, including by failing to advise the drug court defendant, who was pro se, about her right against making self-incriminating statements.

And Rasul should have recused from adjudicating the simple assault complaints because they were filed during the time that Rasul was still the public defender in Englewood, the complaint, signed by ACJC disciplinary counsel Maureen Bauman, also said.

The Supreme Court's order suspended Rasul immediately without pay "pending expedited proceedings" before the ACJC.