BOSTON -- Controversial Suffolk Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez returned to the witness stand for a second day Tuesday in her judicial misconduct hearing over her conduct during a sentencing hearing two years ago for an admitted child molester.

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Lopez faces six allegations of misconduct, including abuse of her office and favoring the defense in the case of Charles "Ebony" Horton, a transsexual charged with kidnapping and assaulting an 11-year-old boy.

NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported that special prosecutor Paul Ware, an attorney for the Commission for Judicial Conduct, tried to play a videotape that shows Lopez' angry outburst in the courtroom during the Horton hearing -- the outburst that is responsible for the misconduct charges against her.

The audio on the tape was poor, however, and so the tape has not yet been played.

On the witness stand Tuesday morning, Lopez did express regret for her conduct during the sentencing hearing.

"I regret the entire exchange with Mr. Deacon concerning the evaluation of the case. If I had to take it back today I would," she testified.

"You regret it?" she was asked.

"I do," she responded.

The testimony was her first public glimpse at how Lopez felt about the Sept. 6, 2000 sentencing hearing of admitted child molester Charles "Ebony" Horton.

Horton, who dresses as a woman, pleaded guilty to luring the boy into his car, then putting a screwdriver to the neck of the boy when he refused to perform a sex act.

Prosecutors asked for an eight-to-10-year prison sentence. Lopez sentenced Horton to probation and a period of house confinement, prompting a public outcry.

During Horton's sentencing hearing, Lopez publicly chastised prosecutors, who she claimed were attempting to exaggerate a "low-level" child abuse case.

Lopez admitted during her misconduct hearing that she was angry at state prosecutor David Deacon because she felt he had tried to turn Horton's case into a media circus.

She said her anger was fueled by what she felt was the prosecution's dishonesty, and by what she felt were attempts to use to the media to pressure her to to give Horton a stiffer sentence.

She testified that she arranged to have Horton brought to court through back hallways to shield him from cameras.

"I asked the court officers to arrange to have Ebony Horton met outside the courthouse to have [him] brought out to a side room, and then to be brought in to the courtroom in a manner where the cameras would not affect the orderly administration of justice," Lopez testified.

She reiterated her dislike of another state prosecutor in the Horton case, Leora Joseph, whom she felt was incompetent.

Lopez acknowledged publicly telling Joseph in court that she "belonged in the suburbs" and later described Joseph as "the kind of woman who stays home, does her nails and goes to the beauty parlor."

Under questioning from Ware, Lopez at first denied that those remarks were meant to be pejorative.

When Ware asked if she meant that Joseph was not fit to do her job as an urban prosecutor, Lopez answered: "Right."

"I think that Miss Joseph, in this statement, shows an ignorance, a total ignorance, about the different types of sexual abuse cases," Lopez testified.

Lopez's attorney, Richard Egbert, acknowledged Lopez's impatience with prosecutors in the Horton case, but said Lopez had not violated any judicial conduct rules.

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