Driver who logged into court hearing from car reveals twist in case

A supposedly suspended driver mocked online for driving a car during a virtual court appearance has revealed he was actually a victim of a clerical error. Corey Harris (pictured right), 44, revealed the monumental mix-up two weeks after the virtual May 15 hearing for an October traffic stop in suburban Michigan went viral.

Judge Cedric Simpson (pictured) expressed disbelief, after Harris - a prominent member of the Ann Arbor community - appeared to drive during a hearing over a suspended license. Harris, however, told 7 News Detroit the order to halt his license was actually rescinded in January 2022, but never forwarded to the necessary state authorities.

Supported by court records viewed by the station, the development comes after Harris already spent two days in jail thanks to an irate Judge Cedric Simpson. Harris, meanwhile, continues to go viral - to the driver's dismay.

'Mr. Harris, are you driving?' Simpson asks in the snippet - which concluded with Harris' bail being revoked and Simpson ordering him to surrender to authorities by 6 p.m. Harris, in turn, replies that he is behind the wheel - to which Simpson expressed surprise. 'OK, so maybe I don't understand something,' the Ann Arbor jurist says, visibly incredulous 'This is a driving-while-license-suspended [case]... And he was just driving, and he doesn't have a license.'

Harris, at this point, also appears surprised, and tells Simpson he had been pulling into a parking lot at a doctor's office for an appointment - later revealed to be for his wife. But Simpson remained unconvinced, eventually ruling that Harris should spent two days in county lockup the hearing, and himself in. He obliged to both, reporting to Washtenaw County Jail that day. Harris said the stint never should have happened - since another court lifted the license suspension two years ago, but failed to get the paperwork to the agency responsible for reinstatement.

He says he is now 'embarrassed' by the case - as he deals with the fallout of being wrongly lampooned by the greater public. 'With the type of ties that I have with the church and the community, it's very embarrassing,' Harris told the station of the widely viewed incident. 'What was I thinking? I was thinking about about getting my wife medical help,' he said of line of questioning aired by Simpson. 'That's what I was thinking.' He added: 'I wasn't thinking about the fact that I got a suspended license. I don't care about all that. 'They were supposed to have been lifted it two years ago, but they didn't.'

Court records support the churchgoer's claims, 14 years after his license was suspended in 2010 in the first place. The ruling, in that case, stemmed from unpaid child support, but was reversed 12 years later by another judge, 7 News found. The station was the first to find the clerical error in Harris's court records, and reported that Simpson himself did not know about the reinstatement, because the Michigan Secretary of State's office never received the necessary clearance. The agency supposed to send such proof, Saginaw County Friend of the Court, assists clients with modifying custody, parenting time and child support orders. 

As recently as Thursday afternoon, Harris's license was still listed as suspended — the same records police and the judge were going off of. 'I don't even know why he would do that,' Simpson snipes in the now-viral video clip, at Harris's expense. Revealing how he has already visited the Secretary of State's office in hopes to resolve the matter, he used the mix-up as a chance to warn others about prospective failures from their neighborhood civic body.

He said: 'Always double-check behind these workers. Because they will say that they will do something and they don't do it.' Moreover, neither Simpson of Harris’ public defender have commented on the oversight, given they also missed it. DailyMail.com has reached out to the Saginaw County Friend of the Court for clarification in what went wrong in Harris's case. The rescindment is still visible in records kept by the state.

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