Judge cries ‘fowl’

The fed-up Newark federal judge in the trial of Sen. Robert Menendez compared two squabbling female lawyers to a “hen party” — and then blasted a couple of male attorneys for getting into a “cock fight.”

“At the risk of being chauvinistic, that’s a hen party. You’re talking over each other,” Judge William Walls told the two female attorneys who wouldn’t stop arguing in court.

The farmyard references didn’t end there.

“And now we have a cock fight,” the annoyed judge said when two male lawyers started going at it.

Menendez, 63, has been on trial since Sept. 6 over allegations that he accepted bribes from his rich eye-doctor friend, Salomon Melgen, who was convicted earlier this year of Medicare fraud.

The trial has become even more heated as it goes into its seventh week, with no end in sight.

On Thursday, lawyers squabbled several times as the defense called witnesses to refute the government’s claims.

A Menendez staffer testified that efforts to help Melgen with an $8.9 million Medicare bill were tied to the senator’s policy con- cerns about “multidosing,” or the practice of using the same vial of medicine on multiple patients.

“Medicare wastes money by prohibiting the practice,” former staffer Michael Barnard told the jury in a line of testimony that led to the “cock fight” comment.

“I’m tired of this schoolyard and playground attitude,” Judge Walls said at one point. “This is sheer nonsense. I’m not used to this practice in New Jersey.”

The judge also said he was “saddened” by constant bickering among people with such “pedigreed reputations.”

It’s not the first time Walls, 84, has sparred with the trial’s law- yers using colorful language.

Early on, he blasted prosecutor J.P. Cooney for a line of questioning that he deemed “tabloid.”

“It’s not going to be a tabloid trial and I am not going to let you swish and swash nonsensical scenarios that don’t even make for a good pulp-fiction story,” he said.

But Wall’s criticism may have helped two opposing lawyers bond outside the courtroom.

During a break, Jenny Kramer, a lawyer for Menendez, gave Amanda Rose Vaughn of the Justice Department the thumbs-up. “Hen party,” Kramer said. “I’ll bring the wine,” Vaughn responded.

AtA the risk of being chauvinistic, that’s a hen party. — Judge Williams Walls (inset) Thursday as two female lawyers argued at Sen. Bob Menendez’s trial