MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The judge overseeing the rape case against former CEO Mark Giannini announced he was stepping down.
Judge John Campbell recused himself Thursday.
The move stemmed from a defense motion to have the judge removed after it was discovered Campbell had worked with a relative of one of the victims.
A court hearing was scheduled for May 29.
Giannini was indicted in January for aggravated rape and two counts of rape.
The Shelby County District Attorney’s Office said the rape charges involved three women.
One of the attacks allegedly happened in 2002, and the others in 2013 and 2014.
Giannini was the founder and former CEO of Service Assurance, a computer and information technology company that he sold to Konica-Minolta.
A 25-year-old woman told police she was drugged and raped at Giannini’s home when she was hired to clean his house in June of 2014.
One of the newer charges included a 23-year-old woman who said she was also raped while working at his home in 2013.
The third case involved three rape charges from 2002 when a 19-year-old woman said she was raped at gunpoint at the Registry Apartments in Cordova.
The woman reportedly came forward after Giannini’s initial arrest.
Giannini was arrested on a Shelby County warrant earlier this year in Pinellas County, Florida, and then returned to Memphis.
