PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WVEC) -- A retired judge designated to hear the fraud and forgery case against a Portsmouth Councilman has officially recused himself.
Court documents just filed Monday, showed retired Judge William Andrews III consulted with the Supreme Court and showed "good cause" for stepping down. The order is a short hand-written note on the bottom of an order on another issue.
This latest shake-up in the case comes almost a year after the judge was assigned to the case, and just a few days after Mark Whitaker's trial was postponed, again.
The special prosecutor told 13News Now he expects to maintain the July date for the trial.
“Trial had not started, so whoever the Supreme Court appoints will be able to step in,” Legal Analyst Mike Goodove said.
There isn't a list of reasons a judge can use to step down.
“A case isn't always the same case when it starts off,” Goodove said. “If a conflict developed that the court was unaware of, the Supreme Court was unaware of and the trial judge was unaware of, that became a conflict issue, this judge has to recuse himself. He has no other choice.”
With no new judge assigned, it's not known what will happen with a defense motion to disqualify the special prosecutor. Included in the motions are pages of the transcript from secret special grand jury testimony. Whitaker's attorneys requested the motions be sealed, but for a short time, it was included in the public court record.
On one page, one of the investigators alleged about Whitaker and the credit union: "That was his own piggy bank."
Another part said the investigation uncovered at least one person who had no idea his personal information had been used on an application. The investigator alleged: "…he never borrowed any money, never gave anybody his information."
Whitaker's attorneys argued in the motion at the time of the hearings, the Commonwealth already knew "the loans had been paid in full."
They submitted an email to investigators, which read: "There were no loans outstanding when the credit union was liquidated in July of 2015."
In other testimonies, an examiner with the National Credit Union Administration said for many of the credit union's loans, they aren't sure which were paid back and which might have been refinanced. She also detailed loans to Whitaker and his family members, which "were not permitted to be made."
Questions show at least one special grand juror was reluctant about the evidence. The transcript reads the juror asked why federal credit union administration officials weren't the ones to move forward the complaint.
The investigator responded the NCUA doesn't have the authority, but the juror pointed out, officials didn't contact investigators, investigators contacted officials.
Less than twenty pages of the transcript, which is hundreds of pages long, were released with the motion. Sources said those pages do not paint the whole picture of the case.