Judge Joseph Boeckmann
Judge Joseph Boeckmann proves when Judges commit crimes they just RESIGN
Judges, Lawyers, Police or Government don’t just represent the law they’re “ABOVE THE LAW”. While they should be held to higher standards most of the time they’re never punished. Allowed to resign and go on abusing, lying, cheating and even murdering innocent people.
Now dozens of the defendants have accused Boeckmann of sexual abuse and misconduct, saying the small-town judge paid them to allow him to spank their naked buttocks with a paddle and to take photos of the red skin. Others said they posed nude in exchange for money to pay off court fines.
The head of the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission called it “if not the worst, among the worst cases of judicial misconduct” in state history.
The case brought into the open gossip that had circulated in private for years about the judge from a prominent family that settled in the farming community more than a century ago.
Boeckmann “systematically used his authority and the trust of the state of Arkansas … to prey upon people he knew would be less credible, people who were in danger of losing their houses, their jobs and their freedom. He is a predator,” said David Sachar, the commission’s executive director.
The 70-year-old Cross County judge, who has denied the allegations through his attorney, resigned in May, ending the commission’s investigation. But at least part of the probe has been turned over to criminal investigators. No charges have been filed.
“His resignation is not to be construed as an admission of anything,” said Boeckmann’s attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig. He said his client concluded that it was “not worth going through the hearing to keep a position that he would have vacated at the end of this year anyway.” The judge did not seek re-election in March.
He allegedly instructed another man to strip naked and bend over, handcuffed, inside an Arkansas courtroom while he snapped photographs, up close.
And on multiple occasions, he allegedly sentenced men — often young and poor — to illegitimate “community service” that ultimately led them to the judge’s home or office, posing for more suggestive photographs as “proof” they had completed their work.
“You’re free to go,” the judge allegedly said after the handcuff incident. “Case dismissed.”
[I got an early tip about a priest’s sexual abuse. And I sat on it.]
These allegations are among dozens of disturbing claims outlined in state documents regarding the year-long investigation into a part-time Arkansas district judge accused of using his authority for the last 30 years to sexually prey on men charged with minor crimes.
The judge, Joseph Boeckmann, Jr., resigned Monday in the face of mounting evidence discovered by the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, which was tasked with determining if the man should be sanctioned or removed from the bench after an initial complaint filed last November. While Boeckmann had previously denied the allegations, his attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, refused to comment further on the judge’s resignation, reported the AP. Boeckmann’s letter of resignation did not include either a denial or confirmation of the charges.
“He’s a criminal predator who used his judicial power to feed his corrupt desires,” David Sachar, executive director of the commission, told the Associated Press. “Every minute he served as a judge was an insult to the Arkansas Judiciary.”
Ongoing local coverage of the incident and publicity on social media motivated victims and witnesses to step forward, according to investigation documents, and share uncomfortable experiences they had with the judge, who presided over Cross County. Sachar told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that at least 12 alleged victims have been named in the commission’s complaint so far, and estimated there were “several dozen more, if not 100 or more.”
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Arkansas judge resigns amid allegations of sexual misconduct
