GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A Guilford County district court judge has been suspended without pay after multiple alleged abuses of power, including using her authority to try to get her son’s bond lowered in Wake County.
On Friday, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ordered that District 18 Judge Angela Foster be suspended without pay for 120 days.
The Judicial Standards Commission asked the court to consider suspending Foster in a filing on Dec. 21, 2023. According to court documents, Foster was accused of violating several canons of the N.C. Code of Judicial Conduct, “violations which amounted to conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice that brings the judicial office into disrepute.”
The commission counsel filed a statement of charges against Foster on July 7, 2022, alleging that she tried to pressure a Wake County magistrate into changing the bond of her son, Alexander Pinnix, without disclosing that she related to Pinnix. Pinnix was being held on Wake County charges of resisting a public officer and misdemeanor breaking or entering.
Another statement of charges was filed against Foster on Feb. 23, 2023, for allegedly demanding that an assistant district attorney and presiding magistrate close administrative court so that she could use the room, which caused more than 100 cases to be continued to a later date.
The commission added that Foster was previously censured for abusing her power in 2019. According to the court, Foster was censured for “holding a hearing without notice, placing a mother in jail without cause and then lecturing the mother’s fifteen-year-old children in an effort to convince them to exercise visitation with their father.”
The commission said that, during mitigation, Foster felt “remorseful for her actions in this matter and has accepted responsibility for her code violations.” The commission did not think that Foster’s conduct was severe enough to warrant removal from office.
March 3, 2022
According to the commission, Foster called the Wake County magistrates’ Office at 10:48 p.m. on March 3, 2022, and asked if Wake County had a defendant named Alexander Pinnix in custody. The magistrate confirmed that Pinnix was in custody on a secured $1,000 bond.
Foster then “began speaking loudly” at the magistrate, according to court documents, and asked that she change Pinnix’s bond to a written promise to appear. The magistrate was confused and put Foster on hold to look at the file and confer with three other nearby magistrates. They determined that Foster had no reason to be involved in the case as an out-of-county judge, and the magistrate returned to the call to ask Foster to explain her involvement in the case. The magistrate then told Foster that she “did not feel comfortable altering the bond of another magistrate.”
Foster asked for the phone numbers of the magistrates involved in Pinnix’s case to call them at home, court documents say. The magistrate refused but recommended calling the Wake County chief district court judge. Foster, according to the document, “became extremely angry at this suggestion, indicated that she would never dream of calling a district court judge at that time of night, and again demanded” that the magistrate change the bond.
The magistrate recommended calling the Wake County chief district court judge in the morning, which caused Foster “to become even more upset. By this point, (the magistrate’s) three co-workers could hear (Foster) yelling through the phone receiver at her.”
Foster reportedly told the magistrate that the bond needed to be changed that evening because Pinnix was expected in court for a child custody case in Guilford County the next morning. She said he needed to be present “because the court was going to take away his children if he was not.” Court documents reportedly showed that Pinnix had no Guilford County child custody case or any other case pending at the time.
The magistrate gave Foster the chief district court judge’s phone number, and the call ended shortly after.
Nov. 7, 2022
On Nov. 1, 2022, Foster texted the chief district court judge, saying that the courtroom she was assigned to for Nov. 7, 2022, “would not meet the needs of her Abuse, Neglect and Dependency Court session.” Foster said she was scheduled to address a case in which two parents, who were in custody, could not be in the courtroom at the same time and therefore needed extra security and staff would be needed for the hearing. She also said she needed a courtroom with recording capabilities, which only some High Point courtrooms have.
The chief judge said Foster could take over Courtroom 3B once administrative court was done in that room. Foster said she was concerned “that the courtroom would not be run ‘with the goal of finishing in an efficient manner.'” The chief judge told Foster they would finish as soon as they could.
On Nov. 7, 2022, Foster went to Courtroom 3B before court started and told the assigned assistant district attorney that she might need his courtroom. The ADA told her how many cases were on the docket and that they were scheduled to use the space that morning.
Foster then went back to her assigned courtroom, 201, and told everyone present that they would be moving to Courtroom 4C, which is for Superior Court. She had not gotten approval from the chief judge or the senior resident Superior Court judge.
When the Superior Court trial court administrator heard voices coming from Courtroom 4C, she asked Foster why she was there. Foster reportedly replied, “Oh they didn’t tell you either … I needed to use this courtroom.” The TCA told the chief judge, and the chief judge confronted Foster by text, telling her to get out of Courtroom 4C. Foster told the chief judge that the bailiffs had given her permission to use the courtroom, which the sheriff’s office denies.
Foster left the courtroom and returned to Courtroom 3B to tell the ADA she needed his courtroom. The ADA said he still had a full courtroom, but Foster reportedly told him to vacate the space. The ADA told the presiding magistrate, and they closed down the administrative court, telling the people in the room that their cases would need to be continued.
“After Administrative Court closed, the presiding magistrate went directly to speak with Judge Vincent to advise her of the incident because he did not want to get in trouble for closing court early in violation of the Administrative Order,” court documents say.
The chief judge then confronted Foster by text for reportedly telling the administrative court to shut down in violation of her administrative order. Foster denied this and said she had spoken to the clerk about possibly moving the administrative court session to Courtroom 4C, which Foster had been told to get out of earlier that morning.
The move led to more than 100 cases being continued.
