FULLERTON : Court Commissioner Submits Resignation

A court commissioner arrested in May on drug charges has resigned his post at the request of North Municipal Court judges.

Commissioner Robert K. Tuller Jr. submitted his resignation late last week, effective July 15, Presiding Judge Linda Lancet Miller said Tuesday.

Miller and the other 11 judges of the court had asked Tuller to resign after he was arrested May 11 in the bathroom of an Anaheim motel with a vial of cocaine in one hand and a blowtorch in the other.

Tuller, 46, was arrested in an Anaheim police sting after officers were told by an informant in October that he had used cocaine more than 100 times over the past 10 years. After his arrest, Tuller told investigators that he had a cocaine problem and had previously sought treatment, police records show.

Tuller, who was appointed commissioner in July, 1986, was charged with one felony count of possessing cocaine. His arraignment was postponed until he completes a drug rehabilitation program at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage.

Miller said previously that while she and the other judges regretted doing so, they asked for Tuller’s resignation because “the unfortunate incident of (May 11) made this action necessary but unpleasant.”

If he did not resign, state law empowered the judges to fire Tuller from the position, which is appointive. Tuller this year had been presiding over all the North Municipal Court’s misdemeanor arraignments, after having spent 1989 handling the traffic calendar.