Federal Judges, Rape

Federal Judge Retires Amid Rape Allegations

Allegations emerge that a now-former federal judge raped a 16-year-old girl in 1981.

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Judge Richard Roberts

Judge Richard Roberts

Per the National Law Journal, Chief Judge Richard Roberts of the District of D.C. sent a letter to President Obama yesterday, tendering his retirement from the bench. Also yesterday — and definitely perhaps explaining his abrupt retirement, a 51-year-old Utah woman filed a federal complaint against the now-former judge for allegedly raping her when she was 16.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

In a federal civil lawsuit filed Wednesday, [Terry Elrod] Mitchell alleges Richard Warren Roberts, then a civil rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, raped her repeatedly while in Utah to aid in Franklin’s prosecution.

A monthslong investigation by the Utah attorney general’s office and a review by former U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell found that Roberts did have a sexual relationship with Mitchell, who was 16 at the time, during the course of the Franklin trial. But the office, Cassell and a third judge, Raymond Uno, determined that, based on the laws on the books in 1981, the office could charge Roberts only with a class B misdemeanor, punishable by six months in jail.

(As an aside, Judge Cassell is no stranger to pursuing allegations of sexual misconduct against legal luminaries.)

At the time, Judge Roberts was 27. He, reportedly, admitted having sex with the woman back in 1981 in a conversation she recorded in 2014. The reason the office could only charge Roberts with a class B misdemeanor is because Utah’s age of consent at the time was 16.

Though the civil suit claims Judge Roberts went beyond statutory rape:

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The suit claims that Roberts used that access to deceive Mitchell and her parents into trusting him. After gaining their trust, he drove her to a hotel, where he forced her up to a room and raped her, the suit alleges.

Afterward, “Defendant Roberts intimidated, coerced, and manipulated Mitchell to have sexual intercourse nearly every day for several weeks,” the suit alleges. It says she repressed all memory of the alleged abuse until 2013, when Roberts emailed her about a new development in the 1981 case in which she’d been a witness.

Certainly troubling allegations.

(The complaint and Judge Roberts’s retirement letter are available on the next two pages…)

Utah woman sues prosecutor — now a federal judge — alleging he sexually abused her in 1981 [Salt Lake Tribune]
D.C. Federal Chief Judge Retires Amid Sexual Abuse Allegations [National Law Journal]
Lawsuit Accuses Chief Federal Judge in D.C. of Raping Girl, 16 [NBC News]
Utah Woman Sues Federal Judge Over Sex Assault Allegations [Associated Press]

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