Judge reassigned after insulting female prosecutor
Judge Mauricio Araujo, a criminal court judge in Cook County, Ill., has been reassigned to administrative duties after being accused of calling a female prosecutor a “bitch” and suggesting that he may have had sex with her while they attended the same law school.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Judge Araujo, 53, was upset that a female prosecutor, and one of his law school peers at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, did not acknowledge him or congratulate him when she entered his courtroom earlier this month.
A complaint that state’s attorney Kim Foxx sent to Araujo’s boss, LeRoy Martin Jr., the presiding judge for the court’s criminal division, reads that Araujo made unwanted sexual advances towards the prosecutor when they were in law school 25 years ago.
The female prosecutor and witnesses’ names were redacted from the memo, which says a different female prosecutor overheard Araujo speaking in Spanish to his court clerk, allegedly saying: “She walked in and didn’t even give me any congrats or acknowledge me. She acted like she didn’t know who I was.” The judge also allegedly called the female prosecutor a “bitch,” after saying, “You think you went to f***ing law school with someone you would think she would say hi to you.”
A male prosecutor, not knowing what to say, joked that the female prosecutor may not have recognized her law school peer in a robe. Araujo replied that their class was made of only 50 people, and maybe she didn’t remember him “because I didn’t have sex with her or maybe it’s because I did have sex with her.”
Araujo had been assigned to the Leighton Criminal Court building for the past five years. Chief Judge Timothy Evans ordered all Cook County judges and employees to undergo sexual harassment training in October.
Araujo told the Tribune that he “doubts” he made sexual advances towards the prosecutor in law school and that he doesn’t believe he called her a name or claimed to have sex with her. “I just thought it was weird,” he told the Tribune. “I don’t know why she treats me like a stranger. I’ve been in this building five years and she always ignores me.”
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