Harris County district court judge accused of domestic violence
Deputies in Galveston arrested a Harris County district court judge on New Year’s Eve after a domestic violence allegation, sheriff ’s office records show.
Frank Aguilar, the elected jurist in the 228th District Court, was arrested by the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office around 3:30 a.m. Sunday in the 9600 block of Teichman Road on a misdemeanor assault charge involving family violence, police records show.
Court records pertaining to Aguilar’s arrest were not available Tuesday. Aguilar declined to comment but said he does not yet have a lawyer.
As court resumed at Harris County criminal courthouse following the holiday weekend, Aguilar did not return to work. The docket resumed Tuesday morning with an associate judge on the bench.
Susan Brown, who oversees the 11th Administrative Judicial Region of Texas, said Aguilar was expected to be out for the rest of the week and the State Commission on Judicial Conduct is expected to consider what happens next.
The commission can suspend a judge in certain situations, said Jacqueline Habersham, executive director for the commission. But the commission does not evaluate a case until charges or an indictment are filed for “misdemeanor offenses involving official misconduct or crimes involving moral turpitude” against a jurist.
An arrest alone does not trigger the review, she continued.
Only the commission can take action on Aguilar’s position in the court, said Amanda Cain, a spokesperson for the Administration Office of the District Courts.
“Judge Aguilar has independently chosen to have associate judges and other district court judges handle his docket this week,” she said in a statement.
Aguilar was among the wave of Democratic judges elected to the bench in 2018. The arrest comes amid his second term in office. Aguilar, as a probable cause magistrate in 2010, was arrested and accused of hitting a woman he was dating. The misdemeanor case went to trial and a jury acquitted him that same year.