Baldwin ? Baldwin Municipal Judge John Cochran was suspended without pay pending investigation into what Mayor Ken Hayes called Cochran’s “highly unprofessional” behavior captured on tape by a Kansas City television news crew.

Baldwin Mayor Ken Hayes said the suspension approved by the city council was meant to give Cochran opportunity to resign instead of being fired.

“But I said they’d have to fire me first,” Cochran told the Journal-World.

Cochran last Thursday told a KCTV5 reporter who put a camera in front of him to “get that out of my face, or I’ll stick it where the sun don’t shine.”

Cochran said he reacted strongly to the TV reporter because he was being wrongly accused of falsifying a 1990 report to the state about his son, who was applying for a Kansas law license.

Cochran’s son, Matthew, was arrested about four weeks ago in Johnson County on charges of dealing methamphetamine. His subsequent arrest drew the attention of KCTV5 and other Kansas City media who began investigating how he obtained his law license. Matthew Cochran studied law in the 1980s at Washburn University and was granted a law license in 1999.

Cochran said KCTV5’s allegation that he falsified a “certificate of activity” about his son during the licensing process was “totally ridiculous. They’re after me now. It’s totally unfair. They said I falsified a report. They’re going to open themselves up to a slander suit.”

Cochran resigned Friday as municipal judge for Gardner, but Baldwin’s mayor said he was still waiting for Cochran to submit a letter of resignation to the Baldwin Mayor’s Office.

“At this point, I think we’ll suspend him pending the investigation, and then I do reappointments in May, and we’ll just kind of see what the environment holds for us,” Hayes said. “He is in an appointed position by the mayor, so we’ll see how this plays out. We will appoint a pro-tem judge.”

Cochran, who lives in Gardner, has been a municipal judge in Baldwin about five years.

Cochran was due to preside in court Thursday, but Hayes said Cochran would not be on the bench.

¢ 6News video: Baldwin Mayor asks city to suspend judge

Hayes said a temporary judge will serve until he appoints a new judge when Cochran’s one-year term expires in May.