55-year-old David C. Nicosia was arrested outside a Chicago courthouse this week after calling 79-year-old Judge Arnette Hubbard "Rosa Parks," telling her to "move" out of his way, then spitting on, and slapping her.
Nicosia, president of an IT consulting business, has no prior convictions in Cook County. He was charged Monday with four counts of aggravated battery and a hate crime,
The Chicago Tribune reported. Nicosia is white, Hubbard is black.
Cook County prosecutors said Tuesday that Hubbard and Nicosia were both in the Daley Center Plaza when she walked past him while smoking a cigarette. He was aggravated by the smoke, and the two got in an argument, during which he told her "Rosa Parks, move" and spit in her face.
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When he tried to walk away Hubbard followed him, calling for help. That's when he turned around and slapped her on the left side of her face.
"People of good common sense and decency, people of good hearts should be outraged by this," said Delores Robinson, past president of the Cook County Bar Association. "Not just because of who she is but that this happened to anybody."
Hubbard, who graduated from Southern Illinois University and John Marshall Law School, began her legal career in 1969, and was appointed to the bench in 1997.
She was the first female president of the National Bar Association and Cook County Bar Association, both black lawyers' groups,
according to the New York Daily News.
"I’m still in shock," said longtime friend Geraldine Simmons, 75, who is also a former president of the Cook County Bar Association.
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