A federal judge is embroiled in a conflict of interest after a prosecutor revealed that he sent nude pictures to prosecutors
Criminal Justice
Conflicts controversy follows revelation prosecutor sent nude photos to federal judge
August 15, 2024, 1:10 pm CDT
A revelation that a prosecutor sent nude photos to a federal judge has led to an allegation that a U.S. attorney’s office tried to use the situation to force recusal. (Image from Shutterstock)
A revelation that a prosecutor sent nude photos to a federal judge has led to an allegation that a U.S. attorney’s office tried to use the situation to force recusal.
The second-in-command with the Alaska federal defender’s office, Gary Colbath, told Bloomberg Law that he thinks that the prosecutor was added to a murder case to force the recusal of U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred of the District of Alaska. Colbath said that after he spoke to the lead prosecutor in the case, the prosecutor that sent the nude photos resigned.
(Photo by Snickers2686, PD US Courts, via Wikimedia Commons) U.S. District judge Joshua M. Kindred of Alaska. (Photo by Snickers2686 via Wikimedia Commons).
The report did not name the prosecutor. The report did not name the prosecutor.
Kindred also told law clerks about sexually suggestive text messages that he received from a local attorney who appeared before him, the report said.
The sexualized relationship with the law clerk continued when she became an assistant U.S. attorney, but she did not appear before Kindred in cases.
The 9th U.S. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco started investigating Kindred in November of 2022. He stopped hearing cases where the senior prosecutor was involved a year later. Bloomberg Law noted, however, that it was “unclear exactly when any potentially improper conduct between the judge” and Kindred began.
Now Kindred’s case are being reviewed for possible conflicts of interests, Bloomberg Law reports. Bloomberg Law reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska identified more than forty cases where recusal might have been required. Many included appearances by the senior prosecutor.
The former law clerk who joined the U.S. attorney’s office has since filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that the office retaliated against her after she reported Kindred’s misconduct, Bloomberg Law reports in another story. The clerk said she learned that her one-year term of employment would not be renewed in a September 2023 office-wide email.
The Bloomberg Law story did not specifically state whether the clerk is the one alleged to have a sexualized relationship with Kindred, but it said the article isn’t naming her because she is a survivor of sexual misconduct.
The law clerk’s lawyer, Kevin Owen, told Bloomberg Law that his client “bravely blew the whistle on not only Mr. Kindred’s misdeeds but also the misconduct of U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors who appeared in his courtroom.”
