Buried in a little-seen appellate court ruling from last week are shocking claims about a Camden County judge’s abhorrent behavior toward a college student and rape victim.
The case involves a woman who sought a restraining order against a man she accused of raping her on their third date. Superior Court Judge Thomas Shusted said after a two-day hearing last year that he believed the woman’s rape claim but denied her the restraining order anyway.
That’s bad enough, and there’s more. During a hearing on May 19, 2025, Shusted had the following exchange with the man he just acknowledged had raped and choked his victim:
Shusted: You understand that when you see her around in the fall, you’re going to turn the other way. You’re not to talk to her. You’re not to look at her. You’re not to do anything. Do you understand that?
Man: Yes, sir.
Shusted: Do you understand the break you got today?
Man: Yes, sir.
This sounds like a father chastising his son for taking the car out without permission, not a judge speaking to a man credibly accused of raping a woman and choking her during the act.
Wisely, a three-judge appellate panel rejected Shusted’s ruling and ordered him to approve the restraining order. Shusted argued that state law requires a history of domestic violence for a victim to win a restraining order, a history the two people in question did not have. But the higher court said the woman did not need to have a long relationship with her attacker to get a restraining order; the egregiousness of the physical force inflicted on her was enough.
The court records from this case are not public, so we don’t know the names of either party or whether criminal charges were ever filed. I asked the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office if the man in question was ever charged with a crime. Jessica MacAulay, the office’s spokeswoman, told me the case is under review.
Because the records in the restraining order case are sealed, what we know about what happened in Shusted’s courtroom is limited to excerpts in last week’s ruling. But they paint a disturbing picture, and have me worrying about what else happens behind closed doors with judges who not only get the law wrong, but also treat rape victims like garbage.
Attorney Nancy Erika Smith agrees with me. She did not represent the rape victim in this case, but has long been one of New Jersey’s top lawyers.
“We’ve seen this time and time again. This isn’t just one judge in New Jersey. Around the country, we hear judges being sympathetic to rapists even in front of their victims. It’s a problem. It’s a cultural problem and we need to end it,” Smith told me.
Smith was especially disturbed that Shusted declined the woman’s restraining order request even after the judge found that the man had choked her.
“One of the most significant indications that a man is going to murder a woman? Strangulation,” she said. “Many men who murder women have tried to strangle them in the past. That’s proven.”
Indeed, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center says that strangulation is used to control victims and remind them that the offender can kill them. Yet in this case, Shusted — who found that the man here pinned the woman “down by her shoulders and later placed [his] hands . . . on her neck. And that it did affect her breathing. And that he did that four or five times” (emphasis mine) — decided that the woman was in no immediate danger and did not need a restraining order, and also decided that the man needed only a verbal warning to stay away from his victim, delivered in what reads like an air of “tut tut, son, now go play.” Disgraceful.
A spokesperson for New Jersey Courts did not return a request for comment on the judge’s remarks, and a message left with Camden County Family Court was not returned.
Shusted is a retired judge who was back on the bench briefly on recall, and I’m told he’s back in retirement. Let’s hope he stays there.
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