Content warning for discussions of sexual violence and harassment.

Usually asteroids are distant features of the cosmos, occasionally crashing down to Earth or threatening the planet.

Not so for former Texas solicitor general Judd Stone, who’s been accused of making the distant space rocks a focal point in violent and bizarre fantasies about a coworker that he regaled to other people.

Needless to say, that’s wildly inappropriate and unacceptable. As 404 Media reports, Stone has now resigned from his position after a damning letter aired the allegations, which involved — apologies in advance — a phallic asteroid used as a sexual implement, like some sort of grotesque riff on a Chuck Tingle book.

According to a letter sent by Texas’ first assistant attorney general Brent Webster, Stone — who had at the time taken a leave of absence to defend Texas attorney general Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial — joked during a 2023 lunching with other government employees about a “disturbing sexual fantasy” that involved a “cylindrical asteroid.” During the debacle, Stone described using said asteroid to sexually assault Webster while his wife and children watched.

That letter, which is five pages long and full of additional allegations of sexual harassment and lies Stone allegedly told, is replete with gory details about this case that we won’t regale you with.

What’s striking to us at Futurism, however, is the “cylindrical asteroid” of it all. Where did Texas’s now-former solicitor general get such an idea, and what could it mean about who he is as a person — and, more importantly, how did it affect the people he worked with?

While we don’t have answers to those first two, it’s quite clear from the letter how Stone’s gruesome asteroid “joke” affected him and his colleagues. Along with Webster’s own concerns about Stone’s violent state of mind and his fear that his family could be in danger, the assistant AG added that a female employee who had been present for that stomach-turning lunch discussion had been so upset by the topic that she excused herself — only to return to japes from others at the table who said she “couldn’t handle people talking about dicks.”

That same woman “exhibited emotional distress” when recounting the anecdote to Webster, and also told him, through tears, that she had been sexually harassed on other occasions by Stone and was concerned about the way he treated women.

When confronted with the sexual harassment allegations against him, Stone admitted to them all immediately, including the bizarre asteroid fantasy. He was, as 404 notes, given the grace to quit or be fired, and chose the former.

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