Even lawyers familiar with sharp language from the bench were stunned by it—a calm, reasonable judge giving the lawyer for a former president of the United States a thorough tongue-lashing.

“He’s probably hiding under his bed because of all this bullshit,” said Bo Dietl, the retired New York Police Department detective and friend of Pecker for 35 years, who occasionally dined with him at Rao’s, the storied East Harlem red sauce restaurant, where Pecker had a standing table on the third Thursday of every month.