Judge: Yep, I Leaked Charlize Adoption Details

An Arkansas judge has admitted he leaked confidential information about Charlize Theron adopting a baby in 2012, two months before she announced the adoption, the New York Daily News reports. Mike Maggio, 52, posted the information on a Louisiana State University online fan message board, using an anonymous profile with the name "geauxjudge." Among other things, he revealed Theron's new son was black. It's not clear whether the adoption actually went through Maggio's court, the Arkansas Times reports; it's also possible it went through a colleague's court and that colleague conferred with Maggio (which is what Maggio's posting seems to indicate). Either way, the information was supposed to be kept confidential.

Under the same profile, Maggio also posted perhaps hundreds of comments, many of them offensive to blacks, gays, and women. (In his posting about Theron, Maggio cracked that he "offered to be the baby daddy.") Blogger Matt Campbell first put things together in a post on Blue Hog Report this week (where you can see a screenshot of Maggio's Theron postings and many others), and now the judge has confirmed the story—and withdrawn from the Arkansas Court of Appeals race. "I take full responsibility for the comments that have been attributed to me," he says in a statement. "I apologize deeply for my lapse in personal judgment and for that, I have no excuse." (More Charlize Theron stories.)