Canada Supreme Court judge Russell Brown under investigation after fight at US resort
- Brown is on indefinite paid leave after he got into an altercation with a man while on holiday in Arizona
- He is accused of ‘touching’ the man’s female companions, following them and trying to enter their hotel room
On January 28, Brown was a speaker at a gala at the luxury Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Montelucia, celebrating a former colleague’s receipt of the Sandra Day O’Connor Justice Prize from Arizona State University in the US. Following the celebrations, the reportedly inebriated judge approached a group in the hotel lounge and sat with them.
Among those in the group was a man identified in the police report as Jonathan Crump, who told the Vancouver Sun that Brown began bragging about his importance as a Supreme Court justice and read aloud from the speech he had delivered earlier in the evening.
Crump and representatives for the Supreme Court of Canada did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
He shoved me. I pushed him back, then punched him in the face twice and he fell to the ground
“He said the male was creepy. Crump said the male ‘was touching’ his female companions, and kissing them on the hand,” according to the police report, which included statements from witnesses who told police they’d asked Brown to stop his behaviour. “Crump said when they all began to walk back to their hotel rooms the drunk male said he was going with them and followed them.”
The police report continued: “To protect the women and to prevent the drunk, creepy, unwanted male from entering the hotel room uninvited Crump punched the male a few times.”