An allegedly suspended driver who was mocked online for driving a car during a virtual court appearance revealed he was actually the victim of an administrative error.
Corey Harris, 44, revealed the monumental mix-up two weeks after the May 15 virtual hearing over an October traffic stop in suburban Michigan went viral.
Judge Cedric Simpson expressed disbelief after Harris, a prominent member of the Ann Arbor community, appeared to drive during a hearing on a suspended license.
Harris, however, said 7 News Detroit In fact, the order to suspend his license was revoked in January 2022, but never sent to the necessary state authorities.
Backed by court records seen by the station, the development comes after Harris already spent two days in jail thanks to angry Judge Cedric Simpson.
Meanwhile, Harris continues to go viral, much to the host’s dismay.
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Corey Harris, 44, made the revelation Thursday in a phone interview, two weeks after the viral May 15 virtual hearing for an October traffic stop in suburban Michigan.
Judge Cedric Simpson expressed disbelief after Harris, a prominent member of the Ann Arbor community, appeared to drive during a hearing on a suspended license. The oversight has yet to be rectified in state records.
‘Mister. Harris, are you driving? Simpson asks in the excerpt, which concluded with Harris’ bail being revoked and Simpson ordering him to surrender to authorities by 6 p.m.
Harris, in turn, responds that he is behind the wheel, to which Simpson appears surprised.
“Okay, maybe I don’t understand something,” the Ann Arbor jurist says, visibly incredulous.
‘This is a driving with a suspended license (case)… And he was just driving and he doesn’t have a license.’
Harris, at this point, also seems surprised and tells Simpson that he had been parking in the parking lot of a doctor’s office for an appointment, which was later revealed to be for his wife.
But Simpson was not convinced and ultimately ruled that Harris should spend two days in the county lockup during the hearing and himself inside.
He forced himself on both and reported to the Washtenaw County Jail that day.
Harris said the move should never have happened, since another court lifted the license suspension two years ago but failed to get the paperwork to the agency responsible for reinstatement.
He says he is now “embarrassed” by the case, as he grapples with the fallout of being unfairly lampooned by the general public.
‘Mister. Harris, are you driving? Simpson asks in the excerpt, which concluded with Harris’ bail being revoked and Simpson ordering him to surrender to authorities by 6 p.m.
Harris’ public defender, seen here, has not commented on the mishap, as they also overlooked the apparent oversight. Meanwhile, the rescission is still available in Saginaw County court records.
“With the kind of ties I have to the church and the community, it’s very embarrassing,” Harris told the station about the widely viewed incident.
‘What was I thinking? “I was thinking about getting medical help for my wife,” she said of the line of questioning conveyed by Simpson.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
He added: “I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I got a suspended license. I don’t care about all that.
“They were supposed to have lifted it two years ago, but they didn’t.”
Court records back up the parishioner’s claims, 14 years after his license was suspended in 2010.
The ruling, in that case, was due to non-payment of child support, but it was overturned 12 years later by another judge, 7 News discovered.
The station was the first to find the clerical error in Harris’ court records and reported that Simpson himself did not know about the reinstatement, because the Michigan Secretary of State’s office never received the necessary authorization.
Harris said he is now “embarrassed” by the case, as he deals with the fallout of being unfairly lampooned by the general public. He wants it rectified as soon as possible
The agency that is supposed to send that proof, Saginaw County Friend of the Court, helps clients modify custody, parenting time and child support orders.
As of Thursday afternoon, Harris’ license was still listed as suspended, the same records police and the judge were reviewing.
“I don’t even know why I would do that,” Simpson says in the now-viral video clip, at Harris’ expense.
Revealing that he has already visited the Secretary of State’s office in the hope of resolving the matter, he used the confusion as an opportunity to warn others about possible failings of his neighborhood civic body.
He said: ‘Always double check behind these workers. Because they will say they will do something and they don’t.’
Furthermore, neither Simpson nor Harris’ public defender have commented on the oversight, since they also missed it.
DailyMail.com reached out to the Saginaw County Friend of the Court for clarification on what went wrong in Harris’ case. The termination is still visible in records kept by the state.
