An American judge in California accused of killing his wife while he was drunk sent a message to a colleague in court saying that he will not appear tomorrow and that he will be “arrested”, according to the US judiciary.
Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 72, appeared before a Los Angeles court on Tuesday, in a first hearing in which he pleaded not guilty.
The judge was arrested inside his house, where the police found his wife’s body wounded by a bullet in the chest, and a group of weapons were found, including 47 weapons and 26,000 ammunition.
The prosecution stated that a strong smell of alcohol was emanating from Ferguson during his arrest.
A quarrel occurred between Ferguson and his wife, Cheryl, 65, on August 3, inside a luxury restaurant in Anaheim, near Los Angeles.
The Public Prosecutor stated that the judge “at that time pointed his finger at his wife in a manner similar to the shape of a weapon.”
According to the prosecutor, the couple continued their fight at home, and Cheryl then told him, “Why don’t you point a real gun at me?”
The judge had no choice but to “take his gun out of a holster he had attached to his ankle and shoot it” at close range.
Ferguson refused in front of the rescuers, whom he summoned himself, to say whether he was the one who fired the shot, but he confessed to two judicial assistants to whom he sent the text message, as indicated by the investigation.
In the letter, which was read by the public prosecutor during the hearing, he wrote: “I lost my mind. I shot my wife. I will not come tomorrow. I will be arrested. I am very sorry.”
Ferguson, a judge since 2015, legally owns the collection of firearms.
“It was an involuntary and accidental shooting, not a crime,” his defense attorney, Paul Meyer, told the media on Tuesday.
The judge was released on bail and banned from consuming alcohol. He is scheduled to appear again in court next October.
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2023-08-16 07:54:53
