Federal prosecutors: Resigned Alaska federal judge had conflict of interest in 23 criminal cases

Alaska federal prosecutors have identified nearly two dozen criminal cases in which a federal judge who resigned in disgrace this month had an undisclosed conflict of interest with attorneys who appeared before him.

Alaska’s federal public defender has vowed to review the cases.

Former U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred resigned July 3 after an excoriating reprimand by the 9th Circuit that became public last week. A multi-year investigation by the court’s judicial council found that Kindred created a hostile work environment, conducted a sexualized relationship with a law clerk who worked for him and exchanged sexual texts with two attorneys — including receiving nude photos from an Anchorage federal prosecutor.

The former judge then lied to investigators, the judicial council concluded. Despite being forced to resign, Kindred may still be impeached.

Kindred, 46, was appointed to one of Alaska’s federal judgeships in 2020 by former President Donald Trump. His resignation left a single full-time federal judge in Alaska, straining court resources and ratcheting up the urgency of a long-delayed nomination and confirmation process to fill two open seats.

The revelations about the compromised cases illustrate the growing fallout over Kindred’s resignation, and the disturbing impact on the integrity of criminal cases in Alaska’s federal court.

On Friday, in an email obtained by the Daily News, executive U.S. attorney Bryan Wilson wrote to the state’s top federal public defender that his office had reviewed cases to “identify potential conflicts of interest arising from the findings” of the judicial misconduct report. Wilson wrote that the report identified attorneys, including prosecutors working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage, “whose interactions with Judge Kindred may have created a potential conflict of interest or appearance of impropriety.”

The judicial council report described a federal prosecutor with cases before Kindred sending him nude photos. It also described another private attorney engaging in flirtatious and sexual text exchanges with the judge.

Judges are bound by ethical code to disqualify themselves from a matter if their impartiality could be “reasonably questioned.”

In the email, Wilson listed 23 cases that involved federal prosecutors with apparent conflicts due to their interactions with Kindred. The cases include theft of firearms, drug distribution, felon in possession of a firearm and other serious cases, some with multiple defendants. Some of the cases are closed. Some Kindred recused himself from in 2022, when the judicial investigation began.

The 23 criminal cases are only the beginning of what should be a larger and searching investigation into how Kindred’s behavior on the bench impacted criminal cases, said Alaska’s top federal public defender.

“This list provided by the USAO only begins to scratch the surface of potential cases impacted by the inappropriate conduct referenced in the judicial investigation,” Alaska Federal Defender Jamie McGrady wrote in a statement.

The Alaska Federal Defender, which is charged with legal representation of indigent defendants charged with federal crimes in Alaska, will be conducting its own investigation, she said.

McGrady said she’d be seeking more information about the “timing, nature, and extent of these various conflicts of interest that could have impacted the outcomes in our clients’ cases.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office didn’t disclose the nature of conflicts in a timely way, allowed employees with known conflicts to remain attached to ongoing cases and had even promoted one of the attorneys involved, McGrady said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not respond to questions about the federal defender’s assertions, instead offering a brief statement.

“The office has obligations with respect to disclosing or avoiding potential conflicts of interest, and we are continuing our review to ensure those obligations are met,” wrote spokesperson Reagan Zimmerman. “As we have stated, we intend our review to be ongoing and comprehensive and will supplement disclosures as necessary.”