Former Ala. inmate: Judge sexually abused himBy PHILLIP RAWLS Associated Press Writer An Alabama man with a lengthy criminal record testified Tuesday that a judge who helped secure his release from jail as a teenager later spanked him with a belt and had sexual contact with him. "I didn't have a choice. He was the judge," the man said. The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of alleged sex crimes. The witness was the first of 14 present and former inmates expected to testify against former Mobile County Circuit Judge Herman Thomas in his trial on charges of kidnapping, sodomy, extortion and sexual abuse. He is accused of coercing the male inmates to have sex with him in return for leniency. Thomas, 48, once a prominent judicial figure in Mobile, spent 17 years as a judge before resigning in 2007 ahead of a judicial ethics trial involving inmate paddlings. The witness, now 26, described how he was arrested at 18 on a lengthy list of charges, including burglary and other property crimes. He was expecting to get a long sentence from another judge until a fellow jail prisoner gave him advice about how to seek leniency. "He told me I could write to Judge Thomas and he would probably get my case and I would probably get probation. That's what I did," the witness said. He said Thomas got his letter and visited him in the Mobile jail in 2002, eventually arranging for him to get out without posting any monetary bond and driving him to Thomas' courthouse office about 5:30 p.m. following his release. "He took off his belt. He told me to pull my pants down," the man said. He said Thomas then had him pull down his boxers and bend over a chair, with the judge striking him six or seven times "full force." The man said it hurt so badly he started crying. Then he felt something touch his rear "like a hand or something," he testified. The witness said when he turned around, the judge was exposed and aroused. The witness said the judge made him turn around and spanked him more before taking him home to his mother. The man said Thomas arranged for him to plead guilty to a burglary charge and fraudulent use of a credit card and gave him five years' probation. He said Thomas kept watch over his case and whipped him again later for ignoring the judge's directions to get a haircut, but nothing sexual occurred that time. The man's mother testified her son told her about the first whipping and showed her the welts on his behind, but she said she supported the judge at the time for trying to straighten out her son. She said her son never told her about anything other than the spankings. Thomas' attorney, Robert "Cowboy Bob" Clark, questioned the inmate's credibility, pointing out that he later served three years in federal prison for counterfeiting and is now awaiting trial on more charges, including credit card fraud and possession of a forged instrument. Clark also got the man to admit that during one arrest he lied to police about his name. "Do you lie very often?" Clark asked. "No sir," the man replied. Chief Assistant District Attorney Nicki Patterson said Thomas' contact was unusual because state judicial rules don't permit a judge to meet privately with a defendant without attorneys. A longtime jail supervisor, Lt. Nina Gordon, testified that Thomas was the only judge she ever saw take an inmate out of the jail.
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