Investigation: Alaska judge who resigned in disgrace failed to disclose conflicts of interest in 23 cases

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A federal judge in Alaska who resigned after a scathing investigation found he behaved inappropriately toward staff and attorneys failed to disclose conflicts of interest with lawyers in 23 criminal cases he tried, prosecutors said.

Alaska’s top federal prosecutor, Jamie McGrady, said her office would launch its own investigation following the resignation of U.S. District Judge Joshua Kindred this month, the Anchorage Daily News reported Wednesday.

Kindred’s resignation came at the request of the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit, which has also referred the matter to the Judicial Conference of the United States for consideration of impeachment proceedings against Kindred.

Kindred, 46, had an inappropriate sexual relationship with one of his employees who later became an assistant U.S. attorney in Alaska, the report said. He received nude photos from another assistant U.S. attorney and exchanged lewd text messages with a private attorney. Both had cases before Kindred, investigators said.

The report also found that the judge created a hostile work environment for his employees and frequently discussed his sex life in their presence.

Kindred, who took office in early 2020 after being appointed by former President Donald Trump, repeatedly lied to investigators and only admitted the truth when presented with evidence in an interview with members of the Judiciary Council, the report said. After his resignation, Alaska was left with only one full-time federal judge.

Chief U.S. Attorney Bryan Wilson told McGrady in an email obtained by the Anchorage newspaper on Friday that his office had reviewed cases to identify potential conflicts of interest arising from the findings of the Judicial Council’s report.

The code of conduct for US judges requires them to recuse themselves from proceedings if there are reasonable doubts about their impartiality.

Wilson identified 23 cases with obvious conflicts arising from Kindred’s interactions with federal prosecutors, including gun theft, drug trafficking and possession of a firearm by a felon. Kindred had recused himself from some cases after the judicial investigation began in 2022, and other cases were dismissed.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska failed to disclose the conflicts of interest in a timely manner, allowed employees with known conflicts of interest to remain employed in ongoing cases and promoted one of the lawyers involved, said McGrady, who called for a more comprehensive investigation into other potentially affected cases.

Her office, which represents indigent defendants charged with federal crimes in Alaska, will seek further information regarding “the timing, nature and extent of these various conflicts of interest that may have affected the outcome of our clients’ cases,” she said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska did not respond to the Anchorage Daily News’s question about McGrady’s allegations.

Instead, spokesman Reagan Zimmerman issued a statement saying the office was obligated to disclose or avoid potential conflicts of interest.

“We continue our review to ensure that these commitments are met,” the statement said. “As we have previously stated, we intend to conduct our review on an ongoing and comprehensive basis and will supplement disclosures as necessary.”

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