Odinet, who’s served as a Lafayette City Court Judge, announced her resignation in a letter to the Louisiana Supreme Court. She said she would step down immediately, local television news station KATC reported.
“I take full responsibility for the hurtful words used to describe the individual who burglarized the vehicles at my home. I am sorry for the pain that I have caused my community and ask for your forgiveness, as my words did not foster the public’s confidence and integrity for the judiciary,” she wrote.
The letter reads: “After much reflection and prayer, and in order to facilitate healing within the community, I hereby resign as judge of the Lafayette City Court effective immediately. I am sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary of State and hope that a special election can be scheduled to fill the vacancy that my resignation creates.”
Odinet began facing calls for her resignation after video posted online showed her using the n-word and comparing the man to a “roach” while watching the video of police apprehending him.
She previously confirmed to The Current that the video was from her home. She told the news site she was unable to sleep since the attempted burglary and took a sedative when the video was recorded, so she did not remember what she said.
She announced that she would take a leave of absence earlier in December.
Her attorney, Dane Ciolino, told local news station KLFY she was “embarrassed and humiliated and sorry for what she has done and the harm she has caused to the community.”
Those who called on her resignation include the Layfayette City Marshall, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus and a leading civil rights attorney. Meanwhile State Senator Gerald Boudreaux pledged to pursue an investigation into her remarks.
Michael Toussaint, chair of the Lafayette Chapter of the NAACP said in a statement to Lafayette news outlets: “I have never met Judge Odinet, only heard her voice in campaign ads. But because she has confirmed that the video was in fact taken inside her home, one would think that as a sitting judge, a mother, a community leader, a person in position of authority, that she would have stepped up and taken a stand against that type of language in her own home.”
Civil Rights Lawyer Ben Crump wrote: “People’s lives are in HER HANDS on a daily basis. This level of hate & racial bias should not be in our courtrooms! She needs to RESIGN!”
