He said his ex abused her power as a Charlotte judge to lock him up. Jurors disagreed.
Julius Bishop has for three years stuck to the same story: He shouldn’t be in jail. His ex-girlfriend set him up. She shouldn’t be a magistrate. She abused her power.
A Mecklenburg jury convicted him Friday in the 2021 domestic abuse case centered around his assault on Ashley Blackwell.
During Bishop’s 1,328 days in jail, he sent eight letters to courthouse officials saying Blackwell and police entrapped him by filing false charges and judges violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial. Even before he was arrested, he told a 911 operator Blackwell was going to set him up.
Evidence presented inside Mecklenburg County Courthouse this week told a different story.
He was charged with assault on a female, assault by strangulation, stalking, communicating threats and violating a protective order.
After deliberating for almost two hours, the jury Friday found Bishop guilty of all charges except stalking. The 49-year-old was sentenced to less than three years, but because he’s stayed in jail under a $100,000 bond for nearly four years, he was to be released on supervision after being processed Friday.
Bishop will appeal the case in the North Carolina Court of Appeals, defense lawyer Samuel Randall told Superior Court Judge Sally Kirby-Turner at the end of Bishop’s trial.
Before his trial started, Bishop asked Kirby-Turner to dismiss his case altogether, citing North Carolina statutes he says have been violated. The judge rejected all requests to dismiss the charges.
Video shows assault on magistrate
On July 19, 2021, Bishop and Blackwell had dated and lived together more than five years. They weren’t sure they wanted to get married, but they wanted to have a baby. A hopeful Blackwell was taking prenatal pills between shifts at the Mecklenburg County magistrate’s office and ABC liquor stores.
After working 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. in the magistrate’s office at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center, Blackwell came home and fell asleep on their downstairs couch. She woke up from her nap to Bishop yelling. He’d found emails she sent to someone she described as her best friend of 18 years.
Blackwell, who grew up in North Carolina, opened those emails with what she called “Southern phrases” — the same kind of words she uses to greet people from behind the register.
Hey baby. Hi love. Hey sweetheart.
Those words were enough to convince Bishop she was cheating. He’d accused her of it before, she said in court, and she’d suspected he’d cheated, too. They had each other’s passwords to various social media accounts to monitor messages and comments. She’d gotten mad at him for the way he talked to other women online, Blackwell said while testifying.
The former couple’s home security system captured footage of the assault. Bishop quickly deleted footage of it, Blackwell testified. She got it back.
In court, video showed Bishop calling Blackwell over to the computer, hitting her with a phone, throwing the phone through a wall and dragging her downstairs while ripping her shirt in the process.
“When you [expletive] with the devil, you get the devil,” Bishop says in the video. “If you don’t shut up I’m going to sock you.”
He then repeatedly strangles Blackwell, at times shoving her from the couch onto the ground and once throwing an object at her. He also took a topless photo of Blackwell without her consent and sent it to one of her male coworkers.
The next day, she filed a domestic violence protective order against Bishop. When he learned that, he called 911.
‘On a war path’
“A magistrate is going to set me up,” he told the operator. “I didn’t punch her. I didn’t touch her.”
During the 18-minute call, he sobs, calls himself a “scorned man,” and reads a message Blackwell sent to him: “I’m sorry it came to this. You did this, not me. You went too far. I love you, but you crossed too many lines.”
“What did I do to you?” Bishop said while talking to the operator. “[She] cheated on me!”
Bishop told WBTV the same story in a series of investigations the news station did on his case.
In court this week, Mecklenburg prosecutor Terra Varnes told jurors Bishop was “on a war path.” He only cared about how hurt he was, she said, and “once he finished assaulting Ashley’s body, he moved on to their home.”
In the days and weeks that followed the assault, Bishop destroyed things he and Blackwell bought together, as well as items that were hers only. He also repeatedly posted on social media about Blackwell cheating on him and once visited her liquor store — violating the protective order — to leave a ripped photograph of them with “adultery is bad character” written on it.
Photos of that note, the damage Bishop caused and the things he posted were provided by Blackwell. The screenshots she gave police and prosecutors have no date or time associated with them.
Evidence in question
CMPD should have done a better job collecting evidence, said Varnes, the prosecutor, but jurors had to use what they have. And they had video evidence of the assault and threatening statements Bishop made, as well as proof he came to Blackwell’s store.
Bishop’s attorney, Randall, suggested Blackwell cherry-picked what she needed to build a case. As a magistrate, she would know how to do that, he told jurors.
“I’m not here to sell you that his actions were reasonable,” Randall told jurors before telling them Bishop “assaulted the crap out of” Blackwell.
He urged them to question the strangulation, stalking and communicating threats charges, though. The stalking charge stems partially from Bishop emailing Blackwell about rent and returning to the home they once shared on the day he was supposed to move back in.
In the middle of deliberating, jurors passed up a note asking the judge to redefine “strangulation.” Randall threw up two “rock on” signs with his hand, joining his two middle fingers with his thumb. The jury ultimately agreed with the state on most charges.
An appellate public defender will be appointed to Bishop’s appeal.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, seek help by calling 911 or the Greater Charlotte Hope Line at 980-771-4673.
