A federal judge on Tuesday emphatically rejected a request by an inmate for a steep sentence reduction on claims he may have been the victim of racial bias from former Judge Jack Camp, who resigned in disgrace because of crimes he committed with a stripper.
"Judge Camp did a lot of bad things and he's paying the price," U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten told Mark Anthony McBride. "But it sure doesn't appear to me this sentence in any way was based on racial animus."
Batten then unloaded on McBride for his crimes, saying he had destroyed lives and orchestrated some of the fraud while living in a halfway house after being released from prison on a previous fraud conviction.
"I think you're a liar, and I think you're a crook," Batten told McBride, who sat at the defense table. As for the breadth of McBride's fraud, Batten said, "It fits in the category of ‘You've got to be kidding me.' "
Batten said if he, not Camp, had initially been assigned McBride's case he would have given him an additional 40 months behind bars -- the maximum recommended by the federal sentencing guidelines.
In April 2010, Camp, the former chief judge of the federal bench in Atlanta, sentenced McBride to 170 months in prison for a mortgage and bankruptcy fraud scheme he committed while on probation for a prior fraud conviction. Camp also sentenced McBride to an additional 2 years in prison for probation violations.
Camp soon hooked up with a stripper at the Goldrush Showbar and was paying her for sex, and together they began smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine and a synthetic of heroin. Camp resigned in November and pleaded guilty to drug charges and to giving the stripper his government-issued laptop computer. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison.
The stripper, who cooperated with authorities, contended that Camp had told her he disliked an African-American man who also had a personal relationship with her. For that reason, Camp said he was uncomfortable sentencing black defendants, particularly if they were involved with white women, the stripper told authorities.
In December, U.S. Attorney Sally Yates revealed those allegations in letters sent to lawyers who represented defendants sentenced by Camp, saying her office thought the disclosure was "critical to our mission of fair and impartial justice."
McBride was later granted a request to be resentenced by another judge. On Tuesday, his lawyer, Thomas Wooldridge, told Batten, "I think we're here for a sound reason, which is to correct the appearance of bias."
But Batten noted McBride's scheme caused 30 victims to lose almost $2.2 million and that this was his fifth felony conviction. "I have to look at all the lives you've ruined and all the money you stole," Batten told McBride.
As for Camp, at the time he handed down his sentence, Batten said: "I have no idea what was going through his mind. I can't believe he gave you 170 months for this. It's just unbelievable to me."
Batten then resentenced McBride, 45, of East Point, to the same prison time that Camp gave him, saying he thought it would have been "unfair, but not unjust," to impose a harsher sentence.
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