New York (The Associated Press) – a judge in New York who was accused of breaking into a neighbor’s underwear to steal her underwear was acquitted on Friday.
Robert Cicale, a judge in the Suffolk County Court, admitted that he broke the woman’s underwear from her clothes several times in Long Island’s home from her clothes, the district attorney Timothy Sini said.
The 23 year old woman used to be a Cicale trainee when he was a lawyer in the town. When she was alone at the East ASHP house on Thursday, she heard a noise and saw a man running away, the policeman said. The woman called her mother, then she called 911.
When the police arrived, they found that Cicale was carrying several pairs of women’s dirty suit underwear on the street, authorities said.
Chan told investigators that he entered the house last Thursday and put his suit underwear on the back, according to the court documents.
It’s not clear why Cicale wore suit underwear at that time.
The judge, who usually heard the misdemeanor criminal case, told the police in the District Court of the county that he broke the underwear in another, Simone Sidney said.
“This is very disturbing,” Simone Sidney said in an interview Friday. “In his confession, he noticed that he strongly urged to do this in order to engage in such behavior.”
Investigators are investigating how many times Zen has broken into a woman’s home, prosecutors said.
“He admitted that he had entered the family illegally on other occasions,” Simone Sidney said.
Cicale is temporarily relieved of his judicial duties, and the matter goes to the state appeals court to decide whether to suspend the Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the jurist and court system.
The judge also issued an injunction to prevent Zen from contacting the victims. As his bail conditions, he was also asked to wear GPS monitoring, Simone Sidney said.
Zen is a bail of 25000 dollars and has not left the courtroom to comment.
His lawyer, William Wexler, said Zen has a good reputation and the judge’s wife is standing at him.
“Every judge, every lawyer respects him. We just need to see the process,” Wexler told reporters outside the courtroom.
