Many accusations against judge; few documents

Ex-jurist accused of sexually preying on male defendants

WYNNE, Ark. — A one-page Arkansas court docket says Richard Milliman was pulled over in 2014 for expired tags and sentenced to community service, which he completed about three months later.

Milliman, however, says it’s all a lie perpetrated by a former district judge accused of sexually preying on him and dozens of other male defendants.

Of the 254 men Judge Joseph Boeckmann sentenced to community service over a seven-year period in one of three districts he oversaw, just 13 of the cases include timesheets and court records showing completion of the sentences, a review of documents shows.

Several defendants — including Milliman, who was sentenced in another district — say they never served traditional community service because the judge offered them “alternative” sentences. Some alleged Boeckmann took photos as they bent over to pick up cans in his backyard. Others said he paid them to pose nude or spanked them with a paddle and took pictures of the red skin.

The judge resigned in May following a commission’s investigation that found more than 4,600 photos of nude or partially clothed men on computers belonging to the judge and financial records that showed he paid thousands of dollars from his business accounts to several defendants who appeared in his court. Boeckmann, who has denied the allegations, declined to comment Wednesday through his attorney Jeff Rosenzweig.

The AP requested all records related to the assignment and completion of community service kept by the Wynne, Cherry Valley and Parkin police departments, the Cross County Sheriff’s Office and the Wynne, Parkin and Cherry Valley district court offices.

No records existed at the police departments or the sheriff’s office. The Parkin and Cherry Valley district courts kept only the sparse docket sheets created by the judge, so only the Wynne branch provided extensive records — albeit only 13 showing completed community service.

Cross County Sheriff J.R. Smith said there was no written policy for community service at his office, but the court would give the defendants a timesheet that they would take to the law enforcement department or other agency they were assigned. Those sheets would be signed by the supervising agency and used to track the defendants’ hours until they had worked off their fines. The sheets would then be sent with them to the court to prove they had completed community service, but copies were not kept by the law enforcement agencies or, most of the time, submitted to court clerks.

Without those documents, there is no record of how many hours and with whom defendants performed community service, raising questions of whether there were more victims than the 35 previously identified by the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission. The commission determines whether judges have violated the code of judicial ethics or have been disabled to the point they can no longer serve on the bench.

David Sachar, the executive director of the commission, said he turned over portions of the files to federal investigators, but no criminal charges have been filed. Sachar also said he believed more victims would have been found if the investigation had continued.

“This has changed my life,” said Milliman, who said he has moved to a different city and changed cars since the incident. “I mean, as a guy, you don’t have to go through that stuff. You don’t have to think of things with that fear.”