Complaint: Judge tried to kiss policewoman, asked court reporter ‘how much’ to have sex with her

Cook County Judge Mauricio Araujo made sexual advances toward a police officer seeking his signature on a search warrant, cornered a court reporter in an elevator and made demeaning remarks about a prosecutor, state judicial authorities charged in a complaint.

Araujo engaged in a “pattern of inappropriate and harassing behavior toward women with whom he interacted . . . in his official judicial capacity,” according to a complaint filed by the Judicial Inquiry Board.

Araujo was reassigned from his courtroom duties to “administrative duties” last fall after an assistant state’s attorney complained about his behavior.

The complaint, filed with the state Courts Commission, cites three incidents dating from 2012 and September 2018.

Araujo, a circuit judge who was elected in 2008 and won retention in 2014, also was the subject of interest of federal agents investigating a Chicago police unit led by two officers now under federal indictment for allegedly stealing money from an FBI informant. Araujo signed off on half of the search warrants granted to members of the unit, including in cases where the subjects claim police stole cash and property.

According to the complaint, a court reporter said that in the spring of 2012, Araujo cornered her in an elevator at the Domestic Violence court building and asked her “how much money” she wanted to have sex with him, a proposition he repeated when the two were alone in the same elevator a few weeks later.

When the court reporter told Araujo that she had a boyfriend, the judge said that “did not matter.” When she told him she was aware that Araujo was married, he said, “It’s OK.”

“The court reporter actively avoided the courthouse elevators after the second proposition from (Araujo),” the complaint states. “(She) otherwise tried to take the stairs whenever possible to avoid being alone with (Araujo) in the confined space of an elevator.”

The court reporter eventually got a transfer out of the Domestic Violence building but made no formal complaint against the judge because she feared it would harm her career.

In August 2016, Araujo allegedly made advances toward a Chicago police officer who came to his chambers at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, seeking his approval for a search warrant. The complaint states Araujo rushed up to the officer and tried to kiss her on the mouth.

“The officer extended her arm to prevent him from coming any closer, loudly stating ‘Back, sir,’ a method she hard learned during her police training for halting a potentially dangerous physical encounter,” the complaint states.

While walking to a courtroom to sign the warrant, the officer again had to shove Araujo away when he grabbed her hand and asked her to “touch (his) butt.” The officer made no formal complaint until media reports about similar conduct by Araujo last fall, but never sought a warrant from Araujo again without other members of her team present.

The most recent incident dates to September, when a female assistant state’s attorney who had attended law school with Araujo more than two decades ago appeared in front of him. In the courtroom, Araujo complained in Spanish to his clerk that the prosecutor did not acknowledge him. After the hearing in his chambers, he complained to a male assistant state’s attorney about the former classmate, opining that the woman had not been friendly to him. Araujo, the report states, said “words to the effect of ‘Maybe it’s because I didn’t have sex with her . . . or maybe it’s because I did have sex with her.’”

The complaint notes that while attending law school, Araujo had made advances on the female prosecutor but she had “rebuffed” him then.

The Judicial Inquiry Board began an investigation of the prosecutor’s allegations last fall. The complaint sets up a hearing before the state Courts Commission, which could suspend, remove or otherwise discipline Araujo.

A Chicago Sun-Times investigation found FBI agents visited Araujo at the criminal courthouse in March 2018 and a week later interviewed him with federal prosecutors, both times asking him about his connections to David Salgado, a CPD officer who was indicted with fellow officer Xavier Elizondo for stealing cash during raids that were monitored by the FBI.

Araujo described Salgado as “more than an acquaintance but not quite a friend,” but also admitted he had attended a wake for Salgado’s mother, as well as Salgado’s bachelor party in Colombia. Araujo said the bachelor party was held at the same time he was in Cartagena for his father’s 80th birthday.

A Sun-Times review of warrant data showed Araujo signed off on 82 search warrants issued to the tactical team run by Elizondo, nearly four times more signatures than the unit got from any other judge. After the two officers were indicted, Chief Judge Timothy Evans changed the rules for how search warrants are approved, steering officers to randomly assigned judges rather than letting officers seek out a particular judge.