FEDS: EX-JUDGE SHOULD GO TO PRISON FOR DRUG CRIMES

ATLANTA -- A former veteran judge who pleaded guilty to drug-related
charges involving a stripper owes a "debt to society" and should serve
at least 15 days in prison, prosecutors said in court documents.

Prosecutors urged Senior Judge Thomas Hogan to overrule Jack Camp's
request that he be sentenced to probation, a fine and community
service. Camp's sentencing is schedule for March 11.

Camp should face between 15 days and six months in prison to "reflect
the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and
provide just punishment," prosecutors said in documents filed Friday.

Camp, 67, resigned from the U.S. District Court in November when he
pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a felon's possession of cocaine
when he bought drugs for a stripper who was secretly cooperating with
authorities. He also pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors.

Camp said in documents last week that his decades-long battle with
depression and a bicycling accident in 2000 caused brain damage that
led him to use drugs and start seeing the stripper. His attorneys said
then "there is no punishment he will endure more painful than the
guilt and shame he faces every day of the rest of his life."

Prosecutors said there's no dispute that Camp was a community leader,
a family man and a respected jurist before he struck up the
relationship with the stripper in May 2010.

"However beginning in May 2010, this defendant, by his conduct,
dishonored his community, his family and our system of justice, and
violated the very laws he swore an oath to uphold," the filing said.
It said Camp's actions "cast dark aspersions on the criminal justice
system and put the very integrity of the federal courts at issue."

Camp, who is married with two adult children, is a Vietnam War veteran
who was appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan in 1987. After he
started seeing the stripper, and prosecutors say he soon began paying
her for sex and using drugs with her.

She became a government informant by October, when Camp was arrested
in a parking lot by federal agents after he gave the stripper $160 for
a drug deal. They also recovered two guns from his front seat and
discovered that he gave the stripper his $825 government-issued laptop
computer.

Prosecutors agree that Hogan should consider Camp's mental and
physical health issues when coming up with a sentence, but they
contend those issues should not excuse his actions or lessen the
seriousness of the offense.

"Defendant argues that he has suffered a loss of reputation, his
livelihood and the trust of his family," said the filing. "While this
is true, defendant also owes a debt to society for his conduct."