Facing accusations of abuse of office for his own sexual gratification, an east Arkansas district judge agreed Monday to resign the part-time judicial position and promised to never again seek public office.
State judicial ethics investigators announced that Cross County District Judge Joseph Boeckmann of Wynne agreed to "permanent" removal from office instead of fighting allegations of ethics violations regarding the use of public office to draw young, white men into activities of a sexual nature in exchange for money, favorable legal treatment or both.
Boeckmann, elected in 2008, has been a judge since 2009. Recent filings by ethics officials indicated that Boeckmann's alleged behavior went as far back as the 1980s, when he was a deputy prosecutor.
"This is the worst case of judicial misconduct in Arkansas history, in my opinion," said David Sachar, director of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission. "A lot of other incidents ... were where judges did something wrong monetarily. ... But this ... it was a systematic, predatory set of acts like nothing I've ever seen."
Sachar said fear of public shaming and retribution kept most of Boeckmann's victims quiet.
Though no longer facing administrative charges from the commission, Boeckmann is still the subject of criminal investigations from state and federal authorities, Sachar said.
Sachar's group has been investigating Boeckmann since late 2014, first looking into instances of Boeckmann presiding over cases involving family members.
That investigation mushroomed into a broad inquiry into Boeckmann's use of public powers for sexual gratification, dating back to Boeckmann's time as a Cross County deputy prosecutor in the mid-1980s, Sachar said.
Documents released by the commission Monday stated that investigators found thousands of sexually oriented photos of men who had been defendants in Boeckmann's court on the judge's personal computer and also found victims who claimed that Boeckmann often gave out spankings with a paddle to some who came to his office.
In past responses to the commission, Boeckmann denied any wrongdoing. His attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, declined to comment further Monday.
Sachar's group has shared some of its findings with Arkansas State Police investigators, and a special prosecutor, Jack McQuary, has been assigned to oversee the inquiry.
In a written statement,McQuary said he could not comment.
State police spokesman Bill Sadler also said he couldn't comment on any ongoing investigation.
Boeckmann came under official scrutiny in August 2014 when a social services investigator began looking into a complaint against an elderly-care facility in Wynne run by relatives of Boeckmann's.
From there, ethics investigators learned that Boeckmann reduced from $50,000 to nothing the bail for a female facility employee accused of three felony counts of elderly abuse.
In addition to being employed by Boeckmann's family, the woman was also the sister of a man who was Boeckmann's former, decade-long "intimate partner" and she was the mother of one of Boeckmann's nephews, investigators learned.
Starting in September 2014, ethics investigators found victims and witnesses who told them that Boeckmann often helped defendants in his court out of jail time, fines or charges entirely by making personal arrangements with the defendants, according to the commission documents.
Last November, the commission publicly alleged that the judge broke 14 ethics rules, and cited a number of state and federal criminal statutes they felt Boeckmann may have broken by coordinating "community service" work for offenders in which the judge would take sexual photos of the men, often from behind.
The judge stepped off the bench while the administrative case was pending. In preparing for the public hearing before the commission set for this October, ethics officials notified Boeckmann that more witnesses had come forward about their dealings with the judge after seeing some of the allegations in the news.
One victim claimed that, when Boeckmann was a prosecutor, the victim went to Boeckmann's office and the Boeckmann -- who was also owed money by the victim for representing him in a divorce case -- told him to pull his pants down and bend over.
"He was hit with a paddle and photographed [by Boeckmann]," the ethics commission filing said, adding that Boeckmann then yelled at the man that he expected to see an erection the next time. "On top of being afraid of retribution, [the victim] has some family relationships that complicated his decisions not to report Boeckmann at that time."
Making a comparison to years of sexual misconduct within the Catholic Church, as well as the actions of now imprisoned former Penn State University college football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, Sachar said many of Boeckmann's victims didn't think anyone would believe them.
"People like this choose their victims specifically because they're helpless or not as believable or don't have as much power," Sachar said. "You pick poor people who have criminal charges, who no one is going to believe in a small town where [Boeckmann had] a lot of money and family history and things like that."
Boeckmann wrote checks to many of his victims, Sachar said, which some victims often saw as a means for helping pay legal fees.
Sachar said he and other ethics officials, including commission Deputy Director Emily White, have inspected around 4,600 pictures obtained from Boeckmann's computer and been able to connect some of the faces to those on Boeckmann's docket who also received checks from him.
Sachar declined to elaborate how his office obtained the photos but said forensic experts indicated that Boeckmann attempted to delete many of them.
"We have dozens of checks written to defendants in court. ... Those same defendants are pictured naked, having been spanked, etc. I don't think it's difficult to connect the dots," Sachar said. "Those would be a payment for spankings, payment for sexual pictures, allowing young men to be able to pay off their fines without being humiliated. ... Hush money or payment, it was brokering justice. The reverse of a bribe."
Some of those victims, Sachar said, even rented their homes from Boeckmann and feared that they could lose their house or their children if they didn't comply with the judge's wishes.
In all, Sachar said there were about 30 to 35 individual victims that they've identified in the photos, but he said he wouldn't be surprised if the total list of those approached by Boeckmann for similar exchanges numbered more than 100.
Although the commission is no longer pursuing a case against Boeckmann, Sachar said he expects that the accounts unearthed by his group's investigation will not go away.
"Today is just the beginning of his problems," Sachar said. "Today is the worst punishment he could get immediately, permanent removal from public office, but I will be dissatisfied if he doesn't pay with his freedom. ... I would guess he's headed somewhere where he'd be identified by a number rather than a name, but we'll see."
Though Boeckmann can no longer hold public office, he can still practice law.
Stark Ligon, whose Office of Professional Conduct handles sanctions for attorneys who break with professional ethics, said he couldn't say whether a complaint had been filed against Boeckmann.
"The only two things I'm permitted to say under the court's confidentiality rules that cover our office are: One, I read the newspaper. And I receive a lot of information from a lot of sources" Ligon said. "I can neither confirm or deny that there is any file here on now former Judge Joseph Boeckmann. But, again, anyone who thinks we don't know what's going on out in the state sells us short."
A Section on 05/10/2016