In 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used a fictitious defendant in an entirely set-up court case to catch a corrupt Philadelphia judge in the act, according to information released by the FBI on Sept. 28, 2014. This already sounds like one of those crime shows on television, but the only director in charge of this ‘episode’ is in the FBI. The FBI’s fake defendant, ‘David Khoury,’ was arrested during a traffic stop that was set up by the FBI in order to catch the corrupt judge, according to The New York Post. Despite the FBI’s shady methods, it was an entirely valid way to uncover corruption, and the judge involved is the only one at fault.
It doesn’t seem real at all, but this dramatic episode truly did play out in a Philadelphia courtroom. The judge hearing the phony case, Dawn Segal, was not the one who FBI agents were trying to snare, but she agreed to do a favor for her colleague. Judge Joseph Waters Jr. was actually the FBI’s target and he idiotically pranced right into the trap they set for him. The target judge was being investigated for corruption, according to The New York Post, and it turns out he was not only corrupt, but also a fool since he did what was expected of him and did a favor for a “campaign donor.”
The judge was allegedly asked by an unnamed campaign donor, who was in reality an FBI agent, to help mitigate defendant Khoury’s sentence. Waters should have explained to the donor that he could not be bribed to influence the case. Waters instead called Segal and asked Segal to go easy on Khoury, falsely referring to the FBI plant as his business associate’s cousin, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Apart from the clear manipulation, coercion, and corruption on Waters’s behalf in contacting this other judge, he loses just that much more respect morally– having lied to Segal about his connection to the defendant.
This move gave Waters a new perspective of the courtroom from the defendant’s seat, though, as he was charged with and subsequently pleaded guilty to federal mail-fraud and wire-fraud charges. These charges are a result of Waters’s request to Segal over the phone, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Despite Judge Waters’s position of prominence, University of Tampa Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Sean Maddan said that Waters will probably plead out and that if “he gets a year, I’d be sort of shocked.”
The law doesn’t lend too severe a punishment for Waters, and his position as a judge will likely lessen his punishment, even when it should be the other way around. Due to his position of prominence, Waters should be more heavily penalized because a higher level of comportment is expected of him.
At the very least, however, Waters will be permanently disbarred, whereas Segal, who actually followed through on the favor, may not even get that severe of a punishment. This is one of the most ridiculous aspects of the case, emphasizing the faults in our legal system. Waters asked for the favor, but Segal followed through.
While Segal likely will not face any legal ramifications, she has been pulled from the bench for the time being and is under “investigation by the state’s Judicial Conduct Board,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Morally and ethically she is at least equally at fault with Waters, if not more so, but legally Waters will pay the grander, yet still relatively inconsequential price.
One must consider why Waters is paying a price at all. The FBI set him up, but Maddan concedes this is completely legal despite the phony case. The FBI and similar organizations perform similar stings quite frequently and probably would perform more phony prosecutions if not for the legal gray area surrounding them, as reported by The New York Post.
It makes sense, after all, to catch a criminal in the middle of doing whatever crime he is suspected of committing. While explaining the frequency of traditional stings, Maddan referenced a case from the 80s where law enforcement caught a dealer trying to buy cocaine with use of a hidden camera hotel room and a phony distributor. What makes Waters’s case so unusual and cringe-worthy is that he’s a judge at the center of the sting, not the expected common criminal.
What keeps this method legal is the result of minor distinctions. After all, the FBI set him up and any TV crime show today would have us thinking: This is entrapment right? Wrong. Entrapment lies beyond the fine line of “going hunting and shooting ducks in a barrel. It’s when there’s no chance for that person to get out of the situation,” according to Maddan. The stings are used as a method to catch somebody doing they would under ordinary circumstances, and since rumors of Waters’s corruption led to the investigation in the first place, it only makes sense to test him.
If Waters had simply said “no” to the supposed campaign donor who had asked this of him as a part of the investigation, then nothing would have happened. He chose corruption over upholding the legal system. He just arrogantly thought it wouldn’t catch up to him. Waters had a way to avoid the situation, but the FBI caught him once he made the wrong choice as they anticipated he would. Therefore, Waters deserves little sympathy in the situation. What FBI actually offered him with their strange tactic was the opportunity to choose right over wrong. Waters and Segal both chose poorly, demonstrating the key problem in judicial elections and thus ruining their futures.
Rebecca Turner can be reached at rebecca.turner@spartans.ut.edu