Michael Cook, a southwestern Illinois circuit judge announced he was stepping down in a brief letter to the county's chief judge, days after he was charged with federal heroin and gun offenses in a widening court scandal, the Associated Press reported.
The charges against Cook came just hours after revelations by the coroner in Western Illinois' Pike County that a fellow St. Clair Country judge Joe Christ died in March of a cocaine overdose while staying with Cook at his family's hunting cabin.
"I'm not surprised under the circumstances," the county's chief judge John Baricevic said. In one sense, it was a formality, but a very important one. Disciplinary procedures seeking him removed could have taken a very long time. He has accepted responsibility, and that has allowed us to move ahead."
Cook has not been charged in Christ's death, but a federal investigation continues as federal authorities caught a St. Clair County probation officer who an FBI agent said admitted providing cocaine to Cook and Christ several times, including just before the judges' hunting trip, IBT reported. The probation officer, James Fogarty, allegedly admitted to using cocaine with Cook and Christ at the cabin in Pleasant Hill, Illinois near the Mississippi River, and that the three men took coke the day before they left for the hunting trip.
Fogarty, who lives in East St. Louis, Missouri was charged with cocaine distribution and drug possession.
Cook became an associate circuit judge in 2007, and was appointed a circuit judge in 2010. Judge Baricevic reassigned all of Cook's pending cases to Circuit Judge Robert Haida, the AP reported.
