Left: Cameron Vaughan pictured during a 2022 interview (Inside Edition/screengrab). Right: Robert Adrian (Law&Crime)
Fresh off his removal from office for reversing the graduation party rape conviction of an 18-year-old he evidently didn’t want to send to prison, a now former judge defended his actions, denied that he ever blamed the victim in court, said “she wasn’t raped,” and said he will retire rather than filing a doomed-to-fail lawsuit over his ouster.
But he didn’t have the last word.
Robert Adrian joined Law&Crime founder Dan Abrams on NewsNation’s Dan Abrams Live for a Monday interview on the Illinois Courts Commission’s removal decision last Friday, a decision based on his 2022 reversal of then-18-year-old Drew Clinton’s conviction for the May 2021 graduation party sexual assault of then-16-year-old from Quincy, Cameron Vaughan, now 18.
As Law&Crime reported on the removal, Adrian initially found Drew Clinton guilty of “committ[ing] an act of sexual penetration by placing his finger in the vagina of the victim when he knew the victim was unable to give knowing consent,” only to reverse himself after hearing post-trial motions that argued the state had not proved its case and lacked evidence.
The commission that investigated Adrian said, however, that the then-judge’s words in court indicated he willfully disregarded the law because he didn’t feel Clinton deserved to go to prison for four years.
“The Court has considered the motions. The Court has considered the arguments of counsel and the written motions themselves. This Court is required to do justice. This Court is required to do justice by the public, it’s required to do justice by me, and it’s required to do justice by God,” Adrian said in court on why he was reversing the conviction. “It’s a mandatory sentence to the Department of Corrections. This happened when this teenager — because he was and is a teenager, was two weeks past 18 years old. He has no prior record, none whatsoever. By law, the Court is supposed to sentence this young man to the Department of Corrections. This Court will not do that. That is not just. There is no way for what happened in this case that this teenager should go to the Department of Corrections. I will not do that.”
Pressed by Abrams on Monday night about his reasoning, Adrian, formerly of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, insisted that his ruling was based on the belated realization of a lack of evidence.
When asked directly about whether he had sympathy for Cameron Vaughan, Adrian said, “I feel sorry that she was used by this not-for-profit group who put her out. It should have never been done to a minor like that after she didn’t give truthful testimony in the case.”
“So, you don’t believe that this defendant put his fingers inside her when she was unconscious?” Abrams followed up.
Robert Adrian joins Dan Abrams Live for an interview on Feb. 26, 2024 about his reversal of Drew Clinton’s rape conviction and removal from office (NewsNation/screengrab)
“She wasn’t raped. That [she was raped] was the original finding. After I reconsidered, and it was pointed out to me that in fact there wasn’t evidence that she was unable to consent, then I had to find him not guilty,” Adrian said.
The commission found, on the other hand, that Adrian’s reversal was carried out in “bad faith” and that he willfully ran afoul of the law and judicial conduct standards.
“Here, we find that respondent acted in bad faith and engaged in willful misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice, and conduct that brought the judicial office into disrepute when he intentionally circumvented the law by reversing his prior guilty finding,” the commission said. The commission further found that there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Adrian “gave untruthful testimony before the Board” and that he should be removed from office for a “flagrant pattern of misconduct” that indicated an “utter disregard for the truth, the judiciary, and our justice system.”
Asked why he believed that the commission ousted him, Adrian told Abrams that the commission “wouldn’t look at the evidence.”
“Well, first of all, they wouldn’t look at the evidence in the case, which is what we asked them to do. And we presented that evidence in the case, and they wouldn’t look at it. They didn’t mention it in their ruling. They said I lied, because I said, my verdict. My second verdict was based on the evidence and that’s why they said that I lied, because they wouldn’t look at the evidence,” he said.
Adrian also addressed the commission’s scolding of him for courtroom remarks calling out parents for allowing teenagers to drink alcohol and allowing “coeds and female people to swim in their underwear in their swimming pool.”
The commission wrote that it seemed Adrian was saying he “did not believe Clinton deserved to go to prison for sexual assault because the female victim was voluntarily intoxicated and swam in her underwear.”
Adrian told Abrams that his remarks were about the parents who sanctioned the alcohol-fueled party, not Cameron Vaughan.
Drew Clinton (Quincy HS Football)
“That’s what the whole situation was. It was a graduation party, where the parents who were there at the party provided alcohol to minors. This young lady actually brought alcohol into the party, gave it to different people and I thought it was the parents who had the party’s responsibility to actually watch over the kids,” Adrian said, adding, “I’m not blaming the victim.”
“I didn’t say anything about her. I’m blaming the parents,” he continued, “they’re the ones who have the responsibility here. They’re the ones that are supposed to be safekeeping the kids, instead they’re providing liquor to them or letting them do whatever they want. And I’m not blaming the victim at all. I’m blaming the parents and that’s exactly what I did.”
That’s not how Cameron Vaughan sees it.
Reached for comment, Vaughan told Law&Crime said she found it “disgusting” that Adrian called her a “liar” on TV.
“As a survivor of sexual assault, I find Judge Adrian’s comments and assertions to be just as disingenuous as the Illinois Courts Commission found them. I think it’s disgusting that he would go on record and outright call me a liar. His actions are shameful, and he has never shown any remorse,” Vaughan said. “To the now former Judge Robert Adrian, you cannot hurt me anymore. I am forever thankful to the Illinois Courts Commission, as they made it possible that he can’t shame and blame any other rape victims, like he did to me. To all other survivors out there, YOU MATTER.”
Vaughan also thanked supporters and those who signed a petition to remove Adrian from office, saying, “I could not have done this without you.”
Adrian, for his part, acknowledged at the end of the NewsNation interview that his days as a jurist are done.
“I have no option to appeal. Could file suit in the federal court, basically on a violation of either due process rights or property rights, but that won’t be successful. I’ll just retire. I was going to retire anyway. So that’s where I’m at,” he said. “I’m just going to retire.”
Watch Robert Adrian’s NewsNation interview below:
