ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News investigative reporter Mark Winne confirmed that a longtime federal judge in metro Atlanta was jailed on drug charges.
U.S. Marshal Richard Mecum confirmed that U.S. District Court Senior Judge Jack Camp, 67, was arrested on federal drug charges by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Attorneys for Camp said their client would plead not guilty. He was released Monday after posting a $50,000 bond.
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Winne obtained the federal criminal complaint that indicated Camp had been arrested Oct. 1 at 7:45 p.m.
According to the complaint, agents found two guns in the front seat of Camp's car, one of them cocked. Camp also had a plastic bag with blue pills and a white powder, according agents.
Winne said the complaint named a part-time dancer at the Gold Rush Show Bar on Metropolitan Avenue in Atlanta as an informant for the FBI. The exotic dancer, labeled by the FBI as "Cl-1" met Camp in the spring, the report said.
According to the informant, Camp returned the next day and paid for sex and the informant provided cocaine he paid for and snorted.
"On multiple subsequent occasions in and about and about and between the spring and summer 2010… they would often use drugs together including cocaine, Roxicodone… and marijuana," the complaint said.
One time the informant drove to Marietta to buy Roxicodone and Camp followed, the report stated. The informant told agents she saw a gun on the front seat of the vehicle Camp was driving.
On another occasion Camp had a gun in his lap and the informant told agents she was concerned he was going to confront a cocaine supplier. Camp was not happy with how the supplier treated the informant, the document detailed.
The documents said the informant recorded Camp before cooperating with the FBI and there are recordings made at the direction of the FBI.
A graduate of The Citadel, the suspender-wearing Camp has presided over civil rights cases, and ironically some drug cases. He also oversaw some high-profile cases.
In 2004, he sentenced the two men accused of killing DeKalb Sheriff Derwin Brown to life in prison without parole. He also handed down a life sentence to former pro wrestler Harrison "Hardbody" Norris for luring women to his home and using them as prostitutes.
Camp, who is a Vietnam vet in his late 60s, was drawn to the legal profession, like many of his generation, by the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Camp was nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.