I was drugged and ràped at a bar association conference. Those who did it were lawyers-April Ademiluyi

A former Prince George’s County judge in Maryland, April Ademiluyi, spoke with The Punch about her brief foray into the judicial system.

When asked what inspired her to pursue public service, she explained that she had not intentionally set out to enter politics. Instead, she chose to contest a judicial seat—an endeavour that, in that jurisdiction, is inherently political and comes with significant constraints compared to other elected offices.

According to The Punch, she said her decision was rooted in a personal encounter with injustice. After falling victim to a crime and reporting it, she discovered that those responsible were affluent, influential, and had close ties to the prosecutors. As a result, she found herself unable to obtain justice.

That experience, she noted, exposed her to what she described as a “two-tiered justice system”—one that treats the wealthy and the poor differently. It was this realisation that compelled her to seek a position on the bench, hoping to contribute to correcting those systemic imbalances.

When asked to elaborate on the incident that motivated her to run, she declined to go into the details but said, “I was drugged and raped at a bar association conference. It was a sad experience in 2012. It was a conference where lawyers gathered. So, obviously, those who drugged and raped me were lawyers. Then I reported the case to the local police.”

She explained that the police had initially helped her document a phone conversation with one of the individuals she accused of drugging and assaulting her, during which she managed to get a confession on tape. However, she later discovered that the recording had vanished and had been replaced with another version.

In the substituted recording, there was no admission of wrongdoing, and the audio was of such poor quality that, in her view, it appeared manipulated or pieced together.

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