Prosecutor: ex-judge ‘a predator’

A former district judge in Cross and St. Francis counties who has admitted fashioning sentences to feed his own prurient interests should be imprisoned for three years and fined $50,000, the U.S. Department of Justice argued ahead of a Wednesday sentencing hearing for Joseph Boeckmann.

But Boeckmann’s attorney says he is “an elderly, broken, ailing man” for whom continued home detention would be adequate punishment.

The 72-year-old Wynne resident pleaded guilty in October to wire fraud and witness tampering, and is scheduled to be sentenced at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Little Rock courtroom of U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker.

Boeckmann has been on home detention since he was indicted in September 2016 on 21 federal charges — eight counts of wire fraud, two counts of witness tampering, one count of bribery and 10 counts of violating the federal Travel Act. The indictment alleged that over a period of years, he used his position presiding over misdemeanor and traffic offenses to obtain personal services from or sexual contact with nine males, ages 16 to 22, by requiring them to participate in “community service” in return for dismissal of their cases.

The community service consisted of sexual favors or Boeckmann photographing the boys from behind as they bent over to pick up aluminum cans and litter.

In admitting to wire fraud, Boeckmann agreed that his dismissals of the cases defrauded the cities, counties and state of fines, fees and court costs that the government entities otherwise would have collected. In pleading guilty to witness tampering, Boeckmann admitted that in 2015, he tried to persuade an out-of-state boy to retract a statement he had given to the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission.

The commission filed an ethics complaint against Boeckmann but never had to try to remove him from office because he resigned voluntarily in May 2016 and agreed to never seek a judgeship or hold another public service position. He had been a district judge in the six-county 1st Judicial Circuit in east Arkansas since 2009.

The charges to which Boeckmann pleaded guilty are punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of between $10,000 and $100,000, though prosecutors agreed at the plea hearing that they wouldn’t object to a sentence of between 30 and 37 months, or 2 ½ to just over three years in prison.

In a sentencing memo filed Feb. 14, trial attorney Peter Halpern of the Justice Department suggested a sentence at the top of the range, calling Boeckmann “a predator who used his position as a judge to gain access to vulnerable young men in order to satisfy his own prurient desires.”

Halpern argued that Boeckmann “did this for years. His actions impacted dozens if not hundreds of young men, he caused unknown financial losses to various cities and counties, and he tampered with witnesses in an attempt to keep his reprehensible conduct secret. His sentence must reflect the gravity of his criminal conduct.”

Baker doesn’t have to impose a sentence in line with the agreement.

Defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig said in a sentencing memo filed Friday that it isn’t fair for the government to bring up “allegations from over two decades ago which were obviously investigated but which were not pursued at the time. It is impossible at this juncture, and with Boeckmann’s health and memory being what it is, for him to attempt to refute these claims.”

He asked Baker to prohibit or disregard testimony that Halpern wants to present about two previous FBI investigations in the mid1990s, when Boeckmann was a part-time deputy prosecuting attorney in Cross County.

Halpern said the investigations “revealed numerous allegations that [Boeckmann] was using his position … to dismiss charges or drop whole cases in exchange for bogus ‘community service’ and overtly sexual acts from individuals who the defendant was supposed to be prosecuting.”