CHAPTER ONE: The Request That Should Never Have Been Made

This chapter is part of a longer series documenting the public record in North Carolina’s District 41. An overview of the project is available [here].

The first moment I realized something was deeply wrong with Judge Randy Pool began the way most serious problems begin in small counties—quietly, informally, and in a way that could be brushed aside if you weren’t paying attention.

Judge Pool was the Chief District Court of Judicial District 41 in Rutherford and McDowell Counties – two rural counties in North Carolina that have very high rates of poverty, crime, and drug problems. He first became a District Court Judge in 1999 when he was appointed by Governor Jim Hunt. Judge Pool remained in that position for more than twenty years, and, almost immediately after taking the bench, he began abusing his authority in a way that would cost so many victims dearly.

This is not a story about a bad judge. It’s a story about a system that protects people like him.

At the time, nothing about my practice suggested I was about to uncover decades of corruption. I was just handling cases, showing up to court, reviewing files, and dealing with the everyday problems that move through a district court docket.

Then Judge Pool instructed clerk staff to pull me and the opposing counsel into chamber and obtain my female client’s personal contact information so he could speak with her privately.

Judges do not call individual parties — especially not those represented by counsel. They do not ask clerks for litigants’ phone numbers. They do not involve themselves in personal conversations with women appearing in their courtroom. These are not gray-area violations. They are bright-line rules that every judge, even the newest, understands.

And yet Pool had asked the clerks to retrieve my client’s personal contact information and send it to him so that he could contact her directly.

That was the moment the ground shifted.

At first, I didn’t know what I was dealing with. I didn’t know whether it was an isolated lapse in judgment or a glimpse of something far more serious. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty:

This was not normal judicial conduct.

It wasn’t even close.

In the months that followed, I began hearing the same pattern from multiple women — never presented as “complaints,” never said with any expectation that I could or would take action — but dropped into conversations the way people reveal something when they’re trying to gauge whether they’re finally safe enough to say the truth.

“He’s messaged me before.”

“He’s done that to other people.”

“Be careful with him.”

No one volunteered specific details. No one gave dates. No one provided screenshots. But the pattern was unmistakable: multiple women, independent of each other, referencing inappropriate contact with the same judge.

Still, nothing yet tied the pattern together. Nothing yet confirmed that these weren’t coincidences or misunderstandings. It was just smoke — but smoke from too many sources to ignore.

Then one day, a different kind of information came in.

A woman — someone who did not appear nervous or reluctant — walked into my office and said that Judge Pool had contacted her directly and she had proof.

Contacted her outside the courtroom.

Contacted her about personal matters.

Contacted her in a way no judge ever should.

She wasn’t looking to expose anything. She wasn’t trying to get him in trouble. She wasn’t even sure what she expected me to do. She just knew something very wrong was happening.

By the time she left my office, the picture had changed entirely.

This wasn’t an isolated incident.

This wasn’t rumor.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding or a woman misreading casual behavior.

This was misconduct — direct, documented, and ongoing.

And it was happening in the middle of active criminal cases, during pending hearings, and with women whose futures Pool controlled. He controlled their dignity, their children, their freedom, their permanent criminal records, and their trust in what a judicial system is supposed to be. And he would exploit, damage, or destroy them all.

Looking back, that was the moment the investigation truly began. Not because I wanted it to, but because once you see something like this, you can’t unsee it. You can’t pretend you didn’t hear it. And you can’t continue practicing in a courtroom where a judge is privately contacting litigants without understanding the scope of what’s happening.

What I didn’t know was how deep it went.