FBI created phony defendant to trap judge; 2nd judge now being investigated by conduct board
To uncover potential judicial corruption, the FBI created a fake persona for an undercover agent; staged his arrest on gun charges; and then arranged for a judge’s campaign donor ask the judge for assistance. That municipal court judge then asked another judge to “help” the defendant, saying it was his “friend.”
According to now-released court documents, an unnamed campaign donor had given $1,000 to Judge Joseph C. Waters’ judicial campaign, and Waters told him: “You run into a problem with any of your people, you get ahold of me,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. “Anything I can do to help you or anybody that you’re interested in, all you do is pick up the phone and call me.”
Corruption charges followed against Waters, who resigned last week shortly before pleading guilty in federal court to mail- and wire-fraud charges. Those charges were related to his call to Judge Dawn A. Segal, requesting that she go lightly on the defendant.
The FBI agent-cum-phony-defendant, who went by the alias David P. Khoury, had been arrested for illegally having a gun in his vehicle.
Segal then reduced a serious felony gun charge to a misdemeanor with less likelihood of prison time. She has been removed from the bench while her actions are investigated by the state Judicial Conduct Board, the Inquirer reported.
“She believed that her decision was the correct one,” says Stuart L. Haimowitz, Segal’s lawyer. “Whether it was a real case or a fake case, she would have ruled the same way.”
The prosecutor who worked the matter, Assistant District Attorney Ebonie Branch, told the Inquirer that she does not recall the case, and Khoury’s onetime defense lawyer, William J. Brennan, doesn’t either.
The Inquirer said that the use of staged prosecutions to ferret out judicial corruption is relatively rare because the method can raise ethical quandaries about tampering with the judicial system.
