ST. CLAIR CO.—Another arrest has been made in the wake of newly-elected St. Clair County judge Joe Christ, 49, being found dead at a fellow judge’s hunting cabin in Pike County, having overdosed on cocaine.
Judge Michael Cook, faces weapons, heroin charges (photo from a St. Louis paper and appearing here via the Fair Use Act)
James Fogarty is charged in federal court in East St. Louis with cocaine distribution and possession.
FBI agent Joseph Murphy said that Fogarty provided cocaine to St. Clair County judges Michael Cook and Joe Christ.
Agent Murphy claims Fogarty sold the men the cocaine before they want to a hunting cabin, which was where Christ was found dead of an apparent overdose.
Cook, who was a public defender, then an associate judge in 2007 before being appointed in 2010 to the bench before winning a six-year term that same year, was charged March 24 in federal court with Unlawful Possession of Heroin and Unlawful User of a Controlled Substance in Possession of a Firearm. Heroin, it appears, is THE drug of choice for the Metro-East area, no matter what your societal class.
He has pled not guilty, and is out on a $10,000 unsecured cash bond, under strict federal probation guidelines.