ST. LOUIS — A southwestern Illinois probation worker has told investigators he snorted cocaine with two judges and repeatedly sold them the drug, including on the eve of the jurists' trip to a hunting cabin where one of them collapsed and died from an overdose, an FBI agent said.
Federal prosecutors charged James Fogarty, 45, in East St. Louis with a cocaine distribution and possession count Friday, the same day St. Clair County Circuit Judge Michael Cook pleaded not guilty during his initial appearance there on counts of possessing heroin and having a gun while illegally using controlled substances.
Authorities allege Fogarty peddled cocaine to Cook and Joe Christ, a former longtime prosecutor who had been sworn in as a St. Clair County judge a little more than a week before being found dead March 10 in a bathroom in the Cook family's hunting lodge in western Illinois' Pike County, about 65 miles northwest of St. Louis.
Pike County Coroner Paul Petty, who also serves as sheriff, said last week toxicology tests showed that Christ -- a 49-year-old father of six -- died of cocaine intoxication, and that Cook was the only one with him at the cabin near the Mississippi River. Petty said he anticipated ruling Christ's death accidental.
Neither Fogarty nor Cook, 43, has been charged directly in Christ's death, though the investigation of Christ's demise continues.