Judge James Obbish to Judge Arnette Hubbard
After hearing fifty-seven-year-old David Nicosia admit under oath that he slapped eighty-one-year-old Judge Arnette Hubbard in July 2014, Cook County Judge James Obbish acquitted him. (The two had had a verbal altercation in Daley Plaza about Hubbard’s cigarette smoke.) Hubbard, a former civil rights attorney who has been a judge since 1997, also testified under oath that Nicosia spat in her face and shouted, “Rosa Parks, move!” before slapping her. “It was a reaction,” Nicosia said, in explaining how his hand just happened to meet Hubbard’s face. “I’m not going to pin a medal on Mr. Nicosia. He did not act in a way that a man should act to any lady,” Obbish said as he acquitted him.
Best of Chicago 2017
