A federal judge in Washington has denied a request to step down from a case amid a dispute over “ill-advised” text messages his law clerk sent to a lawyer involved.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton is assigned to a civil lawsuit against professional baseball player Alfredo Simón Cabrera, who is accused of raping a woman at a Washington hotel. Lawyers for the accuser, identified as Jane Doe in court papers, asked Walton to step aside after learning one of his clerk had ties to the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder, which represents Cabrera.

The clerk, Marina Fernandez, sent text messages in August to one of Cabrera's lawyers that implied she was responsible for a favorable ruling from the judge—messages she later clarified were in jest. “You're going to owe me a beer,” she wrote in one of the messages. The Zuckerman Spaeder lawyer, associate Benjamin Voce-Gardner, previously provided legal assistance to Fernandez. Fernandez's father, Jack Fernandez, is a partner at the firm.