A Perth Amboy judge has been charged in an ethics matter for allegedly convincing a widow to give unsecured loans.
A state attorney ethics committee has filed a complaint against a Perth Amboy lawyer who also serves the city's municipal court judge alleging he failed to disclose a conflict and charged excessive fees in a decades-old estate case he handled for a widow.
In a 2007 photo, Edison Municipal Judge Emery Toth at work during an evening court session. Emery Z. Toth, who is also a former Woodbridge and South River municipal court judge, is accused of encouraging the widow to make loans totaling nearly $800,000 to a woman who is the mother of his child without disclosing the longstanding relationship, according to the complaint filed in August.
In addition, Toth is accused of overcharging the widow while pursuing an insurance claim in her husband's death. Toth collected "a fee in excess of $80,000 having performed minimal services when he collected the double indemnity payment from the insurance carrier," according to the complaint.
Toth has not responded to the pending ethics complaint filed in August by the New Jersey Supreme Court's Office of Attorney Ethics, according to Richard Galex, the OAE's lead investigator in the matter. Toth has until November to file an answer to the complaint, Galex noted.
Toth did not return messages left Thursday and Friday at his law firm in Perth Amboy.
While the case history dates back to 1992 when the widow, Marybeth DeHanes, of Edison, sought Toth's representation, a grievance on the matter was not filed with the ethics office until November 2015.
According to Galex, there was civil litigation involving the matter that "had been ongoing for some time," and the ethics committee wanted to wait until it had finished. The outcome of the civil case is unclear.
The complaint says Toth's actions "amounted to gross negligence" and that he "should not have handled a matter entrusted to him" because of the conflict.
The complaint states Toth's conduct involved "dishonesty, deceit and misrepresentation" and that his conduct "should be disciplined."
Toth faces various degrees of discipline, which would be handled by a disciplinary review board and could range "from a reprimand to a suspension and beyond," Galex said.
Spencer Kent may be reached at skent@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerMKent. Find the Find NJ.com on Facebook.