Former judge dragged from court as brawl erupts over corruption sentencing
Supporters allege Tracie Hunter is being treated harshly because she is black
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Your support makes all the difference.A former judge has been dragged from court amid supporters’ protests, after she was ordered to serve six months in prison.
Tracie Hunter was found guilty in 2014 of having an unlawful interest in a public contract, after allegedly passing confidential documents to her brother, who was fighting to keep his job in a dispute.
The former juvenile court judge has spent years fighting against the sentence and has appealed several times.
She lost her job and her license to practice law following the scandal.
On Monday she was ordered to begin her prison sentence, according to NBC News.
Instead of following the order Ms Hunter went limp and had to be lifted by a bailiff, who held her under her arms and dragged her from the courtroom.
Ms Hunter had asked for a stay but her last attempt to avoid jail failed on Monday.
Several of Ms Hunter’s supporters were in the courtroom when Patrick Dinkelacker, the Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge, ruled against her, telling bailiffs to “take her away”.
Many shouted in protest as Mr Dinkelacker spoke.
One supporter was arrested for charging out of the public gallery.
Mr Dinkelacker acknowledged that he had received several letters supporting his former colleague, who was previously a juvenile court judge.
John Cranley, Cincinnati’s mayor and Christopher Smitherman, the city’s vice mayor, were among those who wrote to Mr Dinkelacker, asking him not to execute the six-month sentence, according to WCPO Cincinnati.
The judge said he had also received several postcards urging him to show leniency to Ms Hunter, most of which were anonymous.
“If this was an attempt to intimidate me, that effort has flat out failed,” he said.
Several of Ms Hunter’s supporters protested outside Mr Dinelacker’s home on Monday.
The case has enflamed racial tensions in Cincinnati.
Many protesters argued that Ms Hunter, who is black, would not have been jailed if she was white.
“Judge Tracie Hunter matters! Black lives matter! Black children matter! Brown children matter,” the group chanted.
“The attitude that [the judge] projected (during the hearing) led us to believe that he was saying to us, as black folks in this city, ‘Stay in your place,’” said Cecil Thomas, an Ohio state senator.
“‘Don’t you dare challenge our authority.’ They say we need to find some healing. No one wants to hear that.”
Ms Hunter will now serve six months in prison, which will be followed by one year of probation.
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