A judge that got caught being videogame buddies with a criminal offender has oddly abandoned his post.
In a somewhat mysterious story this week, a Virginia circuit court judge has left his seat following a car accident which occured as he was giving a gaming buddy a ride home. The gaming buddy happened to be a defendant that the judge had sentenced multiple times in the past.
40-year-old circuit judge Joseph R. Carico swerved to avoid a deer and crashed his SUV into a tree while passenger Jeremy Hubbard was in the car. Hubbard has appeared in front of Carico for shoplifting and drug charges.
The two were reportedly exhausted after a night of playing Halo 3 and Wii Sports at Carico’s house after a few hours of PlayStation 3 at Hubbard’s house. Carico and Hubbard met when they somehow became engaged in a conversation about videogames when Carico wandered into the Bonanza restaurant Hubbard worked in. “We just started talking about video games and he started talking about the Xbox 360,” Hubbard revealed.
The strange part is that Carico appears to have abandoned his post on his own, rather than having been forced off of it. A year prior to the crash, Carico filed to be taken off of a case involving Hubbard due to a conflict of interest, so the two had probably been videogame pals for quite some time.
Carico may be embarrassed by his now public connection to a convicted criminal, but it’s not like the two were doing blow in the bathroom of a nightclub. They were just having a good time with Master Chief and their Miis.
Sadly, the one-time buds have lost touch since the incident. Carico could not be reached for comment so the situation remains enigmatic for now. Was it really that embarrassing to be caught with a videogame buddy?
Source: TriCities via GamePolitics
Published: Jun 27, 2010 10:02 pm