Preacher sorry for outburst
The Cicero preacher was sorry.
He was so sorry he interrupted a federal trial Wednesday to apologize for an earlier courtroom outburst after he learned he wouldn’t be leaving the state to join his family part time.
Herman Jackson, who is known as the bishop of the Ark of Safety Apostolic Faith Temple and is charged with fraud, was ordered out of Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman’s courtroom after he sat down in a huff following a hearing on Wednesday that didn’t go his way.
“Step out in the hall and cool off,” the judge told Jackson, who left the stunned courtroom and waited in the hallway for more than 30 minutes.
Jackson eventually returned to the courtroom and against the advice of his lawyer, addressed the judge before she called in a jury for a separate case.
“I apologize for being emotional and disrespectful when I was walking away,” he said to the judge. She said she accepted his apology.
Jackson was in court Wednesday seeking permission to be able to spend three days a week living with his family in Georgia. Jackson is currently confined to his Cicero church as he awaits trial, but his family lives near Atlanta. He’s been able to visit them with permission from the judge.
Jackson’s attorney said his client needs to join the family part-time to drive a 15-yearold son to and from night classes. In court documents, the attorney said Jackson’s wife will be working more and won’t be home as often.
“He’s 15 — he needs someone to help with transportation,” attorney Matthew McQuaid said.
But Coleman didn’t buy the reasoning.
“He’s 15 and he’s taking college classes and he has no wherewithal for transportation?” the judge said, apparently blaming Jackson and his co-defendant wife, Jannette Faria, for creating the hardship.
A federal grand jury charged both in October for their alleged roles in a scheme to forge applications from parents of children at various incarnations of the church’s day care seeking state subsidy payments meant to help low-income parents pay for child care.
“They chose to sign him up for those classes knowing what the situation was,” Coleman said, adding: “I’m not going to be manipulated by this couple.”
That was enough to apparently persuade Jackson and his attorney to pull their request. But when Jackson tried to address the judge and was denied, he stomped to a bench and sat down in a snit — drawing the judge’s ire.
After Jackson returned to the courtroom and apologized, Coleman said, “The court senses you are a resourceful man” and said Jackson will figure out a way to take care of the 15-year-old’s schooling and safety needs.
Outside the courtroom, Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times he doesn’t think the judge was being fair.