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This judge gave male defendants reduced sentences for sexual favors

This judge gave male defendants reduced sentences for sexual favors

An Arkansas judge has been running a risque and morally reprehensible side-business, trading sex with vulnerable young male criminals for more lenient sentencing.

Joseph Boeckmann served as a district judge in Cross County, Arkansas for six years. He publicly presented himself as the embodiment of the moral high ground, deciding the fates of those who passed through his courtroom.

But now Boeckmann stands accused of a crime himself: reducing the sentences of young men, at least one of whom is under 18, who helped him with “personal work,” a euphemism if there ever was once.

According to The Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, Boeckmann requested that young males contact him at his home to complete “community sentences” like trash pickup.

But when they arrived at the house, they were asked for all sorts of sexual favors in order to have their court fines reduced or thrown out altogether.

Boeckmann also photographed many of the men nude, and hundreds of those pictures have been recovered off his hard drive.

According to the Commission, the pictures “depict young men, many naked who are in various poses inside the judge’s home and outside in his yard.” The report adds “there are numerous photos of naked young men bending over after an apparent paddling.”

In one case, Boeckmann reduced a traffic fine and asked the defendant to bring three bags of cans to his house. The judge offered a drink to the defendant, referred to as W.M., then “Boeckmann informed W.M. that he needed W.M. to pull 2 cans from the bags and bend over as if he were picking up the cans.”

The judge then coached him “on how to pose and spread his legs farther apart.”

Boeckmann is also accused of seeking out “young Caucasian males” to litigate for the sole purpose of targeting them for sex.

The report claims that “Beoeckmann has engaged in a consistent pattern of seeking out young Caucasian male litigants… for the purpose of forming personal, sexual relations with the litigants, thus creating a self-imposed conflict of interest for himself.”

The judge has stepped down from his position and will never again seek employment as a local, county, or state employee.

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