U.S. JUDGE PLEADS GUILTY TO DRUG CHARGES

Standing two floors below his former courtroom, Jack Camp on Friday
resigned as a federal judge and then pleaded guilty for his conduct in
a sex scandal involving drugs, guns and a stripper.

The calamitous fall of the white-haired, bespectacled jurist from a
well-known Coweta County family began in March when he hooked up with
an exotic dancer at the Goldrush Showbar in Atlanta. She gave him a
table dance and her phone number, and then he began paying her for sex
and using drugs with her. But by Oct. 1, the stripper had turned
government informant and Camp was arrested by FBI agents in a parking
lot after helping his lover consummate a drug deal. He spent the
weekend in jail.

Less than two months later, Camp, 67, is now a convicted felon
awaiting a March 4 sentencing date.

Camp entered his guilty plea before Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas
Hogan, a Washington judge assigned to the case by Chief Justice John
Roberts. Hogan began the hearing by asking "Judge Camp" to come to the
podium. He ended it by telling "Mr. Camp" when he would be sentenced.

Before accepting the plea, Hogan read a lengthy statement replete with
the sordid, shocking details of Camp's affair with the stripper.

The statement said they met to have sex, smoke pot and snort cocaine
and ground-up pain pills. It noted that Camp got a deputy U.S. marshal
to run a criminal background check of the stripper, saying he was
renting out a house and wanted to check out a possible female renter.
It said he followed the stripper to drug deals, bringing along a
loaded handgun for her protection.

When the stripper, described only as "Confidential Informant-1," asked
Camp on Oct. 1 to accompany her to a drug deal and watch her back, the
judge did not hesitate, saying he'd not only bring his "little
pistol," he'd bring his "big pistol," too. When Camp was arrested,
agents found two handguns in his car; one was loaded with a round in
the chamber, the hammer cocked and the safety on.

After Hogan finished reading the summary, he looked up at Camp and
asked whether it was accurate.

Stammering, Camp apologized, saying, "I regret ... I'm embarrassed it
is, your honor."

After Hogan accepted the plea and adjourned the hearing, Camp walked
to the gallery where family members sat on the first row. He gave his
wife a long embrace before exiting the courtroom through a side door.

Camp pleaded guilty to three charges. One, a felony, is for giving the
stripper, whom Camp knew had a felony conviction, money to buy drugs.
This count carries a mandatory minimum of 15 days and a maximum of two
years in prison. Camp also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors:
possessing illegal drugs and giving his $825 government-issued laptop
computer to the stripper, about 10 days after he asked the court to
give him a new one.

The maximum punishment Camp faces is four years in prison. But federal
sentencing guidelines recommend that Camp serve four to 10 months in
custody, and his lawyers are sure to ask Hogan to sentence Camp to the
minimum -- 15 days with credit for the weekend he spent in jail before
being released on bond. If Hogan says he will follow the guidelines,
lawyers can ask him to sentence Camp to home confinement or probation.

Hogan made it clear he would have the final say on the sentence and
warned Camp if he did not like the sentence he could not withdraw his
plea. Hogan disclosed he had told prosecutors and defense attorneys he
would not accept any plea deal that included an agreed-upon sentence.

Camp was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan and
served as chief judge until he took senior status, and a reduced
caseload, at the end of 2008. On the bench, Camp could be folksy and
charming in one instance and impatient and irritable the next. He
insisted that lawyers appearing before him not waste the court's time,
particularly when a jury was seated. And the no-nonsense jurist would
not hesitate to hand down tough sentences when he thought they were
warranted.

"God forbid if you had to be coming before Judge Camp for sentencing,"
Atlanta defense attorney Bruce Harvey said Friday.

Harvey criticized the plea deal reached between Camp's legal team and
the U.S. Justice Department's public integrity section. He questioned,
for example, why prosecutors did not require Camp to plead guilty to a
gun possession charge, which would have exposed him to a more severe
sentence.

"Once again," he said, "it's the little people who get caught in the
gears of the system, and those who run the system reap all the benefits."

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment beyond what
prosecutors presented in open court and in court filings.

Washington lawyer Jud Starr, who was the best man at Camp's wedding
and a close friend since the two men served in the military together
in Vietnam, said Camp voluntarily underwent an evaluation in October
to get an explanation for his actions. The tests found no "issues with
controlled substances," and those who examined him concluded his
condition did not affect his judicial decisions, Starr said, reading
from a statement outside the courthouse.

In the coming months, Camp will spend time with his family and
"address the harm of recent events upon those close to him, his
colleagues and upon the citizens of Georgia," Starr said.

"Judge Camp holds himself accountable for his personal actions," Starr
said, "and will strive to better understand and overcome the causes of
his poor judgment."