The California judge forced off the bench after sentencing Brock Turner to just six months in jail for sexual assault is now begging for help paying off $135,000 of his own legal fees.
Former Santa Clara County Superior Judge Aaron Persky — the first California judge to be recalled in nearly a century — recently sent an email to his supporters titled “A Final Ask,” which requested they chip in to help pay off the court-ordered fees he incurred while fighting the recall against him, according to the Los Angeles Times. The fees are due Dec. 31, more than six months after Santa Clara County voters, furious over his handling of Turner’s case, kicked him off the bench.“My campaign committee has spent all its resources fighting the recall,” Persky wrote in the email, according to The Mercury News. “I am writing to ask you to make a contribution to that effort.”
Persky sentenced Turner — a former Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an intoxicated, unconscious woman near an outdoor garbage bin — to six months in prison in 2016. At the time, Persky said a long prison sentence would have a “severe impact” on Turner, who was just 20 years old. In the end, Turner was released early for good behavior and served only three months in jail.To fight the recall on his seat, Persky raised more than $840,000 — and spent all of it. Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, who led the recall effort, raised about $1.4 million, according to the Mercury News. Persky took the recall effort to court, lost, and was later ordered to pay more than $163,000 in attorney fees to his opponent’s representation, although that was negotiated down to $135,000 in a settlement.“I was recalled by voters after a well-funded, misleading, and extremely negative campaign by recall proponents,” Persky wrote in the email. “My campaign, which stressed the vital importance of an independent judiciary, received broad support from the legal community in Santa Clara County and beyond.”The Turner case sparked tremendous outrage, but he's not the only successful young man to receive little to no jail time for alleged rape. A former Baylor University fraternity president won’t spend any time in jail after a Texas judge accepted his plea of “no contest” Monday to accusations that he drugged and raped a 19-year-old woman. And earlier this year, a former University of Virginia student and the grandson of a former governor entered a special plea deal that allowed him to avoid jail time after rape accusations.Cover image: Judge Aaron Persky poses for a photo with a sign opposing his recall in Los Altos Hills, California, in this May 15, 2018 file photo. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
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