(Newswire.net — September 30, 2014) — FBI agents created a suspect named David Khoury, before staging his arrest and subsequent court appearances in a bid to bring down Judge Joseph Waters Jr.
The police report on the Khoury arrest said that the arresting officer, John Snyder, pulled Khoury over in May 2012 for driving erratically on a busy stretch of Torresdale Avenue in Philadelphia.
“When I approached the window, I asked him for his information,” Snyder testified later at a hearing in the case. “I noticed a black handgun on the floor mat area. I asked if he had a license to carry. He said ‘no.’”
The fake 40-year-old defendant was charged with carrying a firearm without a license. He told officers that he did not know his address and had no phone.
Allegedly, he told probation officers he was from Louisville, Kentucky, and gave a Social Security number that appeared to have been issued in Texas in 1988. His black SUV had Virginia plates.
Court documents from Judge Waters show that Mr Khoury, 40, was arrested for illegally carrying an unloaded Glock .40-caliber pistol during a 2012 traffic stop in Holmesberg.
According to the documents, an unnamed campaign donor asked Waters to help Khoury, describing him as a cousin of a business associate.
Waters then called a fellow judge who was scheduled to hear the case. According to Waters’ plea document, he identified Khoury as a friend and asked the judge hearing the case to help him.
Judge Segal later reduced Mr Khoruy’s charge to a misdemeanor, before his case was dropped altogether when he failed to appear for trial and court staff had no address on file.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers who worked briefly on Khoury’s case barely remembered the man, and were not in on the FBI’s secret.
“As I understand it, none of it was real. This whole sting was orchestrated,” Waters’ attorney, Michael Engle, said.
Meanwhile, Judge Segal has been suspended from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, pending an investigation by the state’s Judicial Conduct Board.
Last week, her lawyer Stuart L. Haimowitz said she made the ruling she thought was right at the time.
‘She believed that her decision was the correct one,’ he told the Inquirer. ‘Whether it was a real case or a fake case, she would have ruled the same way.’