A veteran Chicago judge was reassigned after he was accused of calling a female prosecutor and former law school classmate “a bitch,” and implying that he may have had sex with her.
Judge Mauricio Araujo, 53, flew into a rage when the prosecutor, who is not named, was in his courtroom for a case earlier this month, despite their attending Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1993, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“You think you went to … law school with someone, you would think she would say hi to you,” Araujo allegedly vented to a male prosecutor and a Chicago cop in his chambers shortly after the perceived snub, the paper reports.
Araujo then allegedly called the woman “a bitch” and said, “Well maybe it’s because I didn’t have sex with her or maybe it’s because I did have sex with her.”
The vile remarks made their way to the jurisdiction’s special prosecutions bureau chief, who launched a probe, according to the report.
The target of the judge’s vitriol told investigators that “Araujo made unwanted sexual advances” toward her several times during their school days, the report said.
“[I] did not call her bitch,” Araujo told the Tribune. “I do not believe I did.”
He also said that he “doubts” he made advances toward the prosecutor, or made the claims about having sex with her.
Despite the denial, the criminal court judge has been reassigned to administrative duties in the wake of the accusation.
As another part of the fallout, the court system’s nearly 400 judges and 2,400 administrative workers will undergo sexual harassment training next month, the report said.



