Disgraced judge wants sentence overturned

HOUSTON — Lawyers working for disgraced federal judge Samuel Kent have filed a motion to vacate and correct his sentence for obstruction of justice.

Attorneys Dick DeGuerin and Sean Buckley on Monday placed a memorandum in support of the motion before Judge Roger Vinson’s court in the Houston Division of the U.S. District Court.

In a 12-page document, they cited several complaints against the Federal Bureau of Prisons as justification for the appeal against Kent’s 33-month sentence for lying about groping two female employees, who described in court last year how nightmarish working conditions had made them hide from the man one called an intimidating “drunken giant.”

Among the appeal’s complaints are that the bureau has ignored Kent’s intended sentence, arbitrarily classified him as a sex offender, even though he was found guilty of a nonsexual offense, and subjected him to “substantial time in solitary confinement.”

The appeal also maintains that, in sentencing Kent, Vinson relied on five mistaken beliefs regarding the bureau’s discretion in prisoner treatment and that the sentence therefore violates due process.

Kent, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, could have been sentenced to 20 years in prison but made a plea agreement under which he agreed to retire from the bench.

Under threat of impeachment by Congress, he resigned from the bench in June 2009, forfeiting his $174,000 salary, which he could have received for life without resignation or impeachment.