The Alaska US attorney’s office has identified 21 additional cases that might have required a disgraced former judge’s recusal, nearly doubling the number of potential conflicts prosecutors previously acknowledged.
Federal prosecutors listed the cases in an Aug. 2 letter to Alaska’s chief public defender that was obtained by Bloomberg Law. Then-Judge Joshua Kindred “may have had an obligation to recuse himself” in those cases, the letter states.
Many of the 21 matters reflect appearances from an assistant US attorney who a judicial panel found to have sent nude photos and flirtatious text messages to Kindred, before the US district court judge resigned last month.
That prosecutor, Karen Vandergaw, was effectively demoted after the Ninth Circuit investigative council published findings on Kindred’s widespread sexual misconduct July 8. The Alaska US attorney’s office initially flagged 23 cases on July 12 with possible ethical conflicts stemming from Kindred’s actions, but said it was undergoing a review that may identity more.
“The universe of potential cases impacted by the failures to disclose is far greater than those listed in the USAO’s first two disclosures,” Jamie McGrady, the federal defender for Alaska, said in an email Monday.
At least a handful of the cases prosecutors sent McGrady Aug. 2 involved other prosecutors as the primary attorneys on the case. Vandergaw played a less central role, such as showing up in the docket for only one proceeding.
In several of the other cases, Vandergaw withdrew as the counsel in the last few weeks.
In Vandergaw’s former role as senior litigation counsel, she could have presented cases to a grand jury, applied for wiretaps and search warrants, and offered litigation advice “on any number of cases over which Kindred presided,” McGrady said in her email.
“We believe senior management also have distinct conflicts in several cases,” she said, without naming the individuals.
A spokeswoman for the Alaska US attorney’s office and Vandergaw didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Included on the office’s list were guilty verdicts in which the defendant may now have avenues to reopen the litigation. On July 19, an Alaska attorney for a man incarcerated for cyberstalking asked to throw out the conviction over “judicial misconduct” by Kindred.
His former clerk, who the judicial panel said was harassed by the ex-judge, has filed a retaliation complaint against leadership of the Alaska US attorney’s office, Bloomberg Law reported July 31.
In response, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called on DOJ to investigate the former clerk’s whistleblower claims, which stemmed from her time as a line prosecutor in Alaska.
Kindred recused himself, or saw the case reassigned, in at least a dozen of the newly identified cases. But in some cases filed in 2020 and 2021, before the judiciary initiated the misconduct investigation that triggered Kindred’s automatic recusal from Vandergaw’s cases, the judge oversaw cases to conclusion where she appeared at least once.
Meanwhile, McGrady’s office is hiring another appellate attorney to focus on requesting relief in individual cases that may have been impacted and has asked for resources from other federal defender offices, she said.
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Publish date : 2024-08-05 10:59:00
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