SANTA ANA, Calif.— A Southern California judge was arrested on suspicion of killing his wife at their home, authorities said Friday.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson was arrested Thursday night after police received reports of a shooting at the home and found the judge’s wife, Sheryl Fergusonshot inside the home, Anaheim police Sgt. Jon McClintock said.
The woman died at the scene of the incident in the wealthy Anaheim Hills neighborhood. The 72-year-old judge was arrested and taken to jail. He is being held on $1 million bail and is expected to appear in court on Monday. He has not yet been formally charged.
McClintock said another person was at the home at the time of the incident, but declined to say who they were or if they were one of the people who tipped off the incident to police.
Phone and email messages were left with Ferguson’s attorney, Paul S. Meyer.
Ferguson was elected a judge in 2014 and took the position in 2015. He handles criminal cases in a court in the city of Fullerton, Orange County.
He began his legal career with the Orange County district attorney’s office in 1983 and worked on narcotics-related cases, for which he has won several awards, according to the court.
During his tenure as prosecutor, the North Orange County Bar Association awarded him the “attorney of the year” nomination. He was president of that organization from 2012 to 2014.
“This is a very tragic situation for everyone involved,” Lorrie A. Walton, a current member of the College’s board of trustees, said in an email.
In 2017, he was reprimanded by the Judicial Performance Commission for posting a statement on Facebook about a judicial candidate “with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth of the statement” and for being Facebook friends with lawyers who appear before him in court, according to a copy of the agency’s findings.
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