Said the wrong thing to the wrong person—wondering how to smooth things over

I am new at my current job—I’ve only been there a few weeks. In a conversation last week I momentarily forgot how common it is for people working in food service to have had drug and / or alcohol addiction problems and run-ins with the law. I personally have never had any of those troubles, so I do forget sometimes.

I was talking about a former coworker from a different job to a new coworker. I said the former coworker was kind of ‘evil’ and that I’d found out he had a disorderly conduct charge from the past. I made a joke that he probably got really drunk and got in a bar fight.

This new coworker is a trainer and I feel he purposefully trained me wrong immediately after the disorderly conduct comment. I was corrected by management on something my new coworker had told me to do and the new coworker also didn’t admit to our managers that he had trained me wrong.

Later I found out that the new coworker I was talking to just got in trouble with the law for the same types of things I had made a joke about a few months ago. Me and my big mouth!

I wonder if there is any way to smooth things over and rectify the situation?