by Richard W. Millar, Jr.

As a part of my “get off my lawn” old-age holy war, I write about two things I neither like nor understand. Rap music and TikTok.

As far as rap is concerned, I suspect it will dissolve into the dust bin of history like most temporal genres, but I am not sure how history will treat TikTok or other social media for that matter. I know that TikTok is Chinese owned and that many in government believe that it is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe it is; I have no way of knowing. But from what little I have seen on TikTok, including rap videos, I have to wonder what political value it has other than to display people who lack any sense of self worth or decorum.

That brings me to New Jersey which has its own questionable place in our history, and to a TikTok “performer,” if that’s the right word, one Sal Tortorello whose name seems apropos for someone in New Jersey.

From April 2021 through March of 2023, Mr. Tortorello posted some forty videos on TikTok on his public profile which, by definition, made his videos available to people beyond his personal circle. (Of course, that assumes he has a personal circle, but I digress.)

In one video, while seated in a car with a tee-shirt advertising “Freedom of Speech,” Mr. Tortorello lip-synced: “Go ahead baby. You hittin’ them corners too god damn fast. You gotta slow this mother****a down. You understand?”

In another video, Mr. Tortorello was walking through what appeared to be a courthouse while wearing a “Beavis and Butt-Head” tee-shirt with some song called Get Down by someone named Nas playing in the background. Apparently, the lyrics concerned a “criminal case and a courtroom shooting as well as derogatory terms, drug and gang references, and the killing of a doctor in a hospital . . . .”

In another video, Mr. Tortorello appeared to be in court chambers holding cash and lip-syncing something called Sure Thing by someone named Miguel as he pretended to light a match presumably to set fire to the cash. In still another “chambers” setting he lip-synced, “All my life, I’ve been waiting for somebody to whoop my ass. I mean business! You think you can run up on me and whip my monkey ass? Come on. Come on!” (I can’t say that the thought occurred to me, but, again I digress.)

In still another similarly situated setting, he lip-synced lyrics from something called Jump by Rihanna: “If you want it let’s do it. Ride it, my pony. My saddle is waitin’, come and jump on it. If you want it, let’s do it.”

In still another video, Mr. Tortorello involved a song by someone named Busta Rhymes called Touch It. Even I will not repeat the lyrics.

Anyway, you get the drift. Somehow these postings came to the attention of the authorities who thought it was beyond the pale.

And, they were able to do something.

First of all, it turns out that Mr. Tortorello was not his real name. He was really one Gary N. Wilcox.

Secondly, Mr. Wilcox turned out to be a Superior Court Judge.
In New Jersey.

Thirdly, some of the videos were filmed in his chambers, or in his courthouse, sometimes while wearing his judicial robes although some were in his bed which I am guessing was not in his chambers, while he was “partially dressed.”

In his defense, Judge Wilcox said he thought it was silly, harmless, and innocent fun, which, I suppose, is how sites like TikTok induce postings from people who should, but don’t, know better.

Judge Wilcox stipulated to discipline by stipulation which led the Supreme Court of New Jersey to enter an Order recently that he “was suspended from judicial office, without pay, for a period of three months, from October 8, 2024 through January 8, 2025.”
The ruling was not ordered to be posted on TikTok.

Richard W. Millar, Jr. is tired and retired. He can be reached at dickmillar9@gmail.com.