Ocasio appointed Acting Presiding Judge of the 4th Municipal District

Statement issued yesterday by the Office of Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans:

The Hon. Ramon Ocasio has been named acting presiding judge of the Fourth Municipal District in Maywood, said Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans.

“I am pleased to announce the appointment of Judge Ocasio to this new position of responsibility in our Fourth Municipal District, and I know he will strive for excellence, as he has done throughout his judicial career,” Judge Evans said.

Judge Ocasio was first elected in 2006, and has served in the Maywood branch for most of his judicial career. Currently a felony court judge, he has previously served in Central Bond Court (now the Pretrial Division) and in the First Municipal District.

A lifelong Chicago resident, Judge Ocasio received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. Before coming to the bench, he was a Cook County public defender and ran the Illinois attorney general’s regional consumer fraud office in Chicago. He also has served as president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, and has served as the first president of the Illinois Latino Judges Association.

“I look forward to working with Chief Judge Evans to achieve our mutual goals of diversity, equity and justice in our courts and to understand and confront disparate outcomes,” Judge Ocasio said.

The appointment follows the announced retirement of the Hon. Cheryl D. Ingram, who had been the presiding judge of the Fourth Municipal District since 2010. She began her judicial career in 1992.

Judge Ingram's retirement, in turn, opens up that ninth countywide vacancy that the Cook County Democratic Party has already slated.

Judge Ingram was a recipient of the CBA's Dickerson Award in 2020.