SANTA PAULA, Calif. - Former Superior Court Judge Robert Bradley, whose highly publicized battle with alcoholism and drunken driving arrests led to his downfall, choked to death on food at his home. He was 64.
The ex-Ventura County judge was taken from his Santa Paula residence Monday night to the emergency room at Ventura County Medical Center after a housekeeper found him collapsed in the kitchen, authorities said. He was declared dead at 9:30 p.m. Senior Deputy Medical Examiner Craig Stevens said an autopsy Tuesday showed Bradley died from asphyxiation.
After his drunken driving arrest in Ojai in 1997, the same year he was named an outstanding jurist by the Ventura County Bar Association, Bradley spent most of his remaining years in out-of-treatment centers and jail in his fight with alcoholism. A second DUI arrest a month later in Santa Paula eventually led to divorce and loss of his judgeship.
What a sad story. Details here from the AP via the San Jose Mercury News.