Legal News

Samuel Kent: First Federal Judge Charged With Federal Sex Crimes

By Dan Slater

It’s rare that the feds indict a sitting judge. But that’s what happened yesterday when U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent was indicted on charges of abusive sexual contact and attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a female employee. The Houston Chron reports that the indictment puts Kent on the wrong side of history: he’s the first federal judge to be charged with federal sex crimes and the first in Texas indicted in recent history. Here’s the four-page indictment.

The federal criminal investigation was launched in November 2007 after Kent’s former case manager, Cathy McBroom, complained that the judge physically touched her under her clothing twice and often made obscene suggestions during the six years she worked for him.

Through her attorney, McBroom released a statement yesterday: “After a very difficult 17 months, I feel like I have finally been validated. I have listened and read with horror as Judge Kent’s lawyer suggested that what happened to me was ‘enthusiastically consensual,’ ” wrote McBroom, who remains a federal court employee. “I am relieved to find that even federal judges are not above the law, and that sexual abuse in the workplace is never acceptable, no matter the status of the offender.”

But Kent’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, repeated his description of the incidents in the indictment as consensual and part of a close personal and professional “relationship” the two shared. He told the Chron: “To charge Judge Kent of conduct of which he is absolutely innocent based on this kind of flimsy evidence is inexcusable and we will fight it to the bitter end.” DeGuerin said Kent has no plans to resign or retire.

Rusty Hardin, who repped Roger Clemens in the steroid scandal and has been described as slicker n’ deer guts on a doorknob, is McBroom’s attorney. He told the Chron: “I’m extremely disappointed that Dick would choose to try the victim and in this case he just totally ignores the evidence.”

Under an agreement between prosecutors and DeGuerin, Kent will surrender Wednesday for an initial court appearance.

See past LB coverage of Judge Kent here, here, here and here.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 29, 2008 (boomark / email).