A judge in Washington state has been removed from the bench after he forged a document to get a $10 parking break, reports the Seattle Times. The state's supreme court booted pro tem Judge David Ruzumna over the bizarre incident. Ruzumna admitted creating a letter that bore an official seal and another judge's signature stamp—used without permission—and handing it to a parking attendant. As a pro tem judge, Ruzumna wasn't entitled to the $10 break off the usual $30 parking fee granted to King County employees at the county court, though he felt he should have been.
"I acknowledged my mistake immediately and tried to take responsibility for it," Ruzumna said in a statement after the ruling. "I respect the Court, but it got this one completely wrong." He maintains that he submitted the phony document as a joke to the attendant, though the court didn't buy it. Ruzumna is a local attorney who had served as a judge pro tempore for about a decade—such judges are typically appointed temporarily to fill in during illnesses or to ease caseloads. He's now off the list of pro tem judges.
"Whether Mr. Ruzumna was entitled to an employee discount or not was not the concern," wrote one of the judges on the top court, per Seattle Red. "The concern was the incredible lack of judgment in preparing this letter and affixing a judge's signature to it, and then passing it off as true to parking officials, (which) was shocking, to say the least."
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
