Essex judge makes offensive remark to attorney

Essex judge makes offensive remark to attorney Superior Court Judge James Convery may have meant it as a joke when he looked out at an attorney in his Newark courtroom and asked, ?Well, when did you become an illegal alien?? But given that the attorney, Ivette Ramos Alvarez, was the immediate past president of the Hispanic Bar Association of New Jersey, the joke went over like a lead balloon. Alvarez left his courtroom abruptly, and the Jan. 4 incident has become the basis for a misconduct complaint against the judge.