Suit Claims California Federal Judge Missed Yacht Payments

U.S. District Judge James Ware has been sued by a bank that claims he has stopped making payments on a 1993 Navigator 33 Yacht.

Butte Community Bank claims the San Jose, Calif., judge owes more than $58,000, the San Jose Mercury News reports. “Even a federal judge can wind up having problems with lenders and banks these days,” the story says.

The suit says Ware bought the $80,000 boat nine years ago and agreed to make monthly payments of $812. He declined to comment on the dispute to the newspaper.

Ware was once considered “a rising star in the California judiciary,” the story says. He was nominated to a federal appeals court, but the nomination was scuttled after revelations that he had made up a story about being the brother of a boy killed by racists in Alabama. It turned out that a different James Ware lost a brother to violence.