On November 6, 2015, Kocurek was shot and seriously wounded by an assailant in the driveway of her home in the
Tarrytown neighborhood as she and her son were returning home from a football game at her high school. Kocurek lost a finger due to the attack, but was able to return to the courtroom by February 2016. The culprit behind the attack was Chimene Onyeri, an aspiring rapper whom Kocurek previously sentenced for running a tax refund scam. Since that conviction, he had expanded his criminal enterprise into credit card and debit card
skimming, furthering his operation by bringing in multiple accomplices. The investigation into the assassination attempt revealed the full scope of his
racketeering enterprise, and Onyeri was put on trial at the
federal courthouse in
Austin. After the assassination attempt, it was revealed that someone had earlier called in an anonymous tip that an unnamed judge was going to be targeted, but the vague tip was dismissed after investigation. In April 2017, the
Texas Senate passed the "Judge Julie Kocurek Judicial and Courthouse Security Act of 2017" (the Act), mandating security protection for judges who have been threatened or attacked, including the creation of a Court Security Division within the state's Office of Court Administration; ==References==