Tabbey_bros.jpg

Dr. Ross Tabbey (left) and Judge Kirk Tabbey (right)

(Courtesy of Antrim County Jail)

The brother of a suspended Washtenaw County judge had a tube sock filled with an ounce of marijuana with him when the two men were arrested in September, according to a police report.

Judge Kirk Tabbey, 58, who is serving a 90-day suspension after a drunken-driving conviction stemming from the incident, says he did not know his brother, Dr. Ross Tabbey, 60, had any drugs on him the day the two men were arrested after a day of boating on a lake in northern Michigan.

The judge quickly pleaded guilty and agreed to a suspension. His brother, an emergency room doctor at the Detroit Medical Center, is still facing a drug charge in Antrim County, records show.

"No, I did not know he had pot on him," the judge told The Ann Arbor News. "I was shocked to hear that he had it."

The police report, recently obtained by The Ann Arbor News via a Freedom of Information Act request, tells the story of two brothers who went out for a day on the lake and had too much to drink.

In an interview with The News, the judge said he'd recently had a knee surgery that was causing him excruciating pain while he was out on the water.

"I was trying to escape that pain," he said. "I had never experienced this kind of pain before."

A rough landing

The two men had been out on Torch Lake Sept. 17 before attempting to take the boat out of the water in the tiny hamlet of Alden in Helena Township, about 25 miles northeast of Traverse City, the report indicates.

Tabbey said he'd had knee replacement surgery in April and hadn't been able to get out much over the summer during his recovery. But by September, he felt good enough to head up north to Torch Lake for a vacation.

He said he didn't even plan on drinking that day, but that his knee "started to come apart," so to bear the pain while out on the boat, he started drinking whisky. Meanwhile, his brother agreed to drive both the boat and the truck later, according to the judge.

"My intention was to never operate the boat or vehicle," the judge said.

Because of the problem's with Judge Tabbey's knee, they never made it to their destination of Elk Lake, which is connected to Torch Lake by other waterways. Instead, the brothers had to put in at Alden, Tabbey said.

It would be a rough landing.

A volunteer member of South Torch Lake Fire and Rescue called police around 9:39 p.m. to report that two heavily intoxicated men were attempting to load a boat onto a trailer at the Alden Boat Docks, located near the intersection of Coy Street and Helena Road, the report indicates.

Both men were having trouble walking or standing, the woman wrote in an account of the incident prepared for Deputy Mike McCool with the Antrim County Sheriff's Office.

She wrote that the fire and rescue ream was conducting training at the docks when two men approached in a boat. They tried and failed several times to tie up at the docks, so the woman said she helped them.

One of the men, later identified as the judge, was having trouble standing up in the boat. The woman wrote that the judge fell on the pavement after getting out of the boat and that members of the rescue team helped him upright and sat him on a step.

"He had trouble understanding us and what was going on," she wrote.

The judge said it was the most intoxicated he's ever been and that he only has a fuzzy recollection of the day.

Meanwhile, Ross Tabbey took off for about a half hour to go get the truck and trailer, the woman wrote.

The judge tried to get up and almost fell again, she wrote.

"He mumbled something about knee surgery," she added. "Three of us helped him over to the park bench by the creek and told him to stay put until his friend returned."

According to her account, the two men hung around for a while, saying they were going to call for help. When they drifted over toward town, the woman called 911.

"We decided if they were going to drive it would not turn out very well," the woman wrote.

Dispatch told her to call back if they did try to drive, according to records.

The two men returned about a half hour later in a vehicle described as a silver Chevy Trailblazer and attempted to get the trailer into the water "with much difficulty" while members of the fire and rescue team attempted to help, according to the woman's letter.

Ross Tabbey was driving the truck at the time, according to both the judge and the woman's written account. But when police showed up a few minutes later, the judge was behind the wheel.

The judge explained that his brother didn't have much experience loading a boat onto a trailer. The judge was in so much pain that his brother helped him into the passenger seat of the truck, however, he said.

But Ross Tabbey was having trouble backing the trailer into the launch, according to the judge.

"He had me crawl over the seat into the driver's seat," the judge said, admitting he knew he shouldn't have been behind the wheel.



The judge's arrest

McCool, the Antrim County sheriff's deputy, saw the truck headed east on Helena Road before stopping on the right-hand side of the road not far from the boat launch, according to the report.

McCool noted in his report the truck was weaving, so he initiated a traffic stop.

Neither brother listened to the deputy at first, McCool wrote. Both were out of the truck and needed to be told several times to return to the vehicle.

When McCool asked for identification, Kirk Tabbey showed him his judge's card, the report said. McCool asked again. The second time, Kirk Tabbey showed his judge's badge, the report said. The judge showed the McCool his driver's license on the third request, according to the report.

While the officer was trying to call the drivers' licenses into dispatch, Kirk Tabbey shouted, "judge, I'm a judge" three different times, McCool wrote in the report.

The judge, however, told The Ann Arbor News he was not asking for any special treatment.

"I never asked for a favor from anybody," he said, adding that he was merely having trouble finding the proper identification due to his inebriation.

"I was drunk. I was struggling to get my ID out of there," he said.

The judge had a hard time walking while performing field sobriety tests, which he failed before blowing a .19 on a preliminary breath test, McCool wrote. The officer was also made aware of the judge's knee problems. In Michigan, it's illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of .08 percent or above.

McCool arrested the judge and put him in the backseat of his vehicle.

Weed-filled tube sock

Ross Tabbey got out of the vehicle while his brother was attempting to perform the field sobriety tests, and the deputy had to order him to stay in the truck, according to the report

After the judge's arrest, Ross Tabbey told McCool he was just trying to "put things away," the report indicated.

McCool told Ross Tabbey that if he was at the legal limit to drive, he'd be allowed to take the truck and boat, but the doctor blew a .11 percent.

He also appeared nervous to the deputy.

"Ross continuously ... wanted to put his hands in several different pocket locations on his jacket and his pants," McCool wrote in his report.

The doctor consented to a search of his pockets. McCool first found a small knife, but Ross Tabbey still appeared nervous, according to the report. After the doctor again got yelled at for trying to rifle through his pockets against the officer's orders, he admitted to having marijuana.

The deputy found a large Ziplock bag in Ross Tabbey's front pocket, the report said.

"Inside the large Ziplock bag was a white tube sock which appeared to have items packed in it," McCool wrote in his report.

The deputy unpacked the tube sock, which contained more Ziplock bags, an ounce of alleged marijuana and a smoking device, the report said.

Judge Tabbey said he was surprised to see his brother in the back of the patrol car with him and even more shocked to discover that he was being arrested for drug possession.

The judge said neither he nor his brother smoked marijuana on the boat that day and that he never knew about the tube sock filled with pot.

According to Kirk Tabbey and the police report, the judge's blood was never tested for marijuana use.

Both men were taken to the Antrim County Jail.

Suspension

The judge was originally charged under Michigan's 'super drunk' high blood alcohol content law, which has stiffer penalties for those who blow .17 percent or higher.

However, he pleaded guilty Oct. 16 to a lesser charge of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol in the 86th District Court. Judge Michael Haley sentenced Tabbey to pay fines that same day.

On Nov. 10, the Michigan Tenure commission recommended that the Michigan Supreme Court suspend the judge for 90 days without pay, something the court agreed to a few weeks later.

The judge said his knee required another surgery and he is currently recovering from an operation while on suspension. He added that the suspension is actually saving taxpayers money, because he would have had a paid 90-day medical leave if it weren't for the suspension.

"I will ... make amends for my mistake and become a better public servant," he wrote in an email to The News.

As the presiding judge at the 14A-2 District Court in Ypsilanti, Judge Tabbey deals with drunken driving cases on a regular basis. He has been with Washtenaw County district courts since 1997. His suspension started Dec. 2, and he plans to retake the bench March 2.

Meanwhile, his brother's case is still winding its way through a northern Michigan court.

Ross Tabbey was arraigned on a charge of marijuana possession Oct. 16. A few weeks later, that charge was dismissed and a lesser charge of marijuana use was added, court records show.

A motion hearing is set for Jan. 7.

The Ann Arbor News attempted to both call and email Ross Tabbey's attorney, Joseph Kwiatkowski. Neither message was returned.

His medical license has not yet been affected, according to a search of the state's Licensing and Regulatory Affairs website.

John Counts covers crime and breaking news for The Ann Arbor News. He can be reached at johncounts@mlive.com or you can follow him on Twitter. Find all Washtenaw County crime stories here.