Judge Caught Using Drugs Gets 1 Month Behind Bars

(CN) - A former senior federal judge in Georgia will serve one month in prison, the court in which he used to preside ruled Friday, after his arrest and plead of guilty to charges that he bought drugs and used them with a stripper he had been paying for sex.

Former Senior U.S. District Court Judge Jack T. Camp Jr., 67, pleaded guilty in November 2010 to three felony counts: unlawful possession of cocaine, marijuana and Roxycodone, aiding and abetting the unlawful possession of controlled substances by a previously convicted drug felon and conversion of government property.

Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, a Washington, D.C. judge sitting in Atlanta by designation, handed down the one-month sentence today.

Camp's arrest on Oct. 1, 2010, made national headlines as an FBI affidavit revealed that judge was caught buying drugs for a stripper he met at the Goldrush Showbar in Atlanta and letting her use his government-issued laptop.

Camp stepped down from the bench in Georgia's Northern District, admitting that he had spent the last five months using drugs with the stripper. As part of his November plea, Camp admitted knowing that the stripper had a prior felony record that compounded the seriousness of his crimes.

Days before voluntarily surrendering his license to practice law in Georgia on Feb. 28, Camp's lawyers asked the court to save the former judge's family further embarrassment and not punish the judge with a prison sentence.

The defense attorneys' memo called Camp "a lonely man in the twilight of his life [who] became entangled with a seductive prostitute more than willing to take advantage of his needs and his misguided impulse to be her friend and protector."

Noting Camp's history of depression and a recent accident that apparently caused Camp brain damage, attorney William Taylor, with the Washington, D.C.-based firm Zuckerman Spaeder, pleaded for mercy.

Taylor also discussed how Camp had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer, how Camp's sister is dying of metastatic cancer and how the two still care for their elderly mother with dementia.

Taylor requested a sentence of probation and community service rather than forcing Camp to "languish in prison."

Prosecutors contested the former judge's motion.

In addition to the prison term and one year of supervised release, Camp was sentenced to pay a $1,000 fine and $825 in restitution.

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