Left: Judge Brian Lovell in a judicial profile photo (Garfield County Court); Right: in a Texas booking photo (Travis County Sheriff’s Office)
An Oklahoma judge accused of two drive-by shootings in two states is now facing removal for alleged corruption on the bench — as well as a series of sexual misadventures inside his courthouse with court staff.
In September 2023, Garfield County Associate District Judge Brian Lovell, 58, was indicted in Travis County, Texas, for allegedly using his 40-caliber Glock to shoot six parked cars at an intersection near locally famous Tex Mex eatery Juan in a Million. After that, according to Lone Star State law enforcement, the judge drove away and used his SUV to try and force a woman’s car into oncoming traffic — leaving the road rage scene in a huff by firing three final shots into the air.
In May of this year, Lovell was indicted again — this time by the Sooner State. The modus operandi and the gun used was the same, authorities said. The judge allegedly showed up at his brother-in-law’s house and fired several rounds into the home with the pistol. This incident occurred in February 2023, according to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Lovell allegedly reported his gun stolen two days later — but held onto it until the Texas incident, at least.
A removal petition filed by an Oklahoma Supreme Court justice last week makes clear that none of “the alleged criminal activities” have anything to do with the effort to remove Lovell from the bench — to avoid jeopardizing either investigation.
The heart of the removal petition focuses on a series of allegedly improper uses of judicial power in several cases.
The petition summarizes the complaints against the judge as including “engaging in ex parte communications with attorneys appearing before him, making disparaging remarks about attorneys appearing before him, publicly evidencing bias for a particular attorney, and setting the amount of bond on criminal charges based on bias for the defendant’s attorney or the defendant.”
A series of secondary concerns listed in the removal petition have to do with various sexual misconduct claims.
According to the state supreme court justice, Lovell exchanged “sexually graphic messages and images with court staff inside the courthouse during courthouse hours” and had “sexual intercourse with court staff inside the courthouse during courthouse hours.”
Lovell was highly favorable to the legal work done by one attorney in particular, the petition alleges in detail.
The judge, according to court minutes, often praised the attorney’s decisions no matter what he did — whether choosing not to cross-examine a witness in a case (and describing the decision as “brilliant”) or choosing to do so (and praising the cross-examination as “very extensive.”) When the attorney questioned one witness, Lovell described the lawyering as “excellent.” When other attorneys performed similar work, however, no adjectives were ever used, the justice noted.
And, seemingly, this level of admiration often worked in the attorney’s favor in terms of bond decisions. Oftentimes, the petition alleges, such sweetheart bonds were secured via secret text message conversations between the lawyer and the judge. In one instance, Lovell allegedly disparaged a client but granted him a favorable bond anyway — explaining that it was because of who he had picked to represent him in court.
In one particularly notable instance of such alleged favoritism, the petition alleges Lovell granted a protective order to the attorney’s client in a domestic case over an incident at a funeral home.
As it turned out, the allegedly favored attorney did not represent either party in the underlying case. Instead, the petition alleges, the judge improperly and without any authority to do so, granted a protected order requested by the third-party business who the attorney represented — the funeral home — but only after allowing the attorney himself to personally approve the order.
As for the sex, over the years, Lovell allegedly had sex with two different bailiffs.
The first incident was confirmed and came to light in 2011 — when the woman was forced to resign. At the time, however, five fellow judges voted to keep Lovell in his robes, and he was made aware that a sexual relationship with a bailiff was considered improper, the justice noted.
According to the petition, Lovell had sex with a bailiff again during the summer of 2023 — inside the courthouse during business hours.
During August 2023, the two allegedly exchanged several graphic sexual text messages and images on multiple occasions — always during work hours. The sexual relationship continued into September 2023, according to the removal petition, again with the rendezvous occurring inside the courthouse.
Later, when confronted over those allegations, Lovell chalked the extent of their relationship up to “flirtatious texting.” The bailiff, however, told investigators that she had, in fact, had sex with the judge.
In a tertiary reason for discipline, the justice accuses Lovell of “sealing a court file with no justification” and then “attempting to persuade an attorney to give false testimony to the Council on Judicial Complaints.”
Investigators also accuse the judge of “failure to cooperate and be candid and honest with the judicial disciplinary agency.”
Overall, the state’s high court justice concludes, Lovell’s judicial actions — again entirely divorced from the criminal allegations against him — demonstrate a pattern of conduct that has resulted in “gross neglect of duty, gross partiality, corruption in office, commission of offenses involving moral turpitude while in office, and oppression in office.”
In an accompanying order, the judge was temporarily suspended from performing his judicial duties. He has until July 8 to contest the interim suspension order. A motions hearing on the merits of the removal effort is currently slated for July 30.
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