A woman who clerked for a federal judge in Alaska and was forced to resign over sexual misconduct has spoken out about her experiences, giving a harrowing account of how she was pressured into oral sex.
July 9, 2024, published at 2:30 PM ET
A woman who worked as a law clerk for a federal judge in Alaska who was forced to resign over sexual misconduct, has spoken out about her experiences and given a harrowing account of how she was pressured into oral sex, RadarOnline.com has learned.
According to the results of a internal research made public Monday, the U.S. District Judge said Joshua M. Kindred created a hostile work environment by regularly making explicit sexual comments to his clerks and formed “an unusually close relationship” with one woman.
Kindred allegedly made “regular demands on the clerk’s personal time and attention,” exchanging 278 pages of text messages with her over an eleven-month period and repeatedly telling her that he missed her and that she was “a of my best friends’.
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U.S. District Judge Joshua M. Kindred was forced to resign his lifetime appointment after an internal investigation found that he created a hostile work environment, had an “inappropriately sexualized relationship” with one of his law clerks, and then lied about it to the federal government . researchers.
After the woman left her internship and started a new job as an assistant U.S. attorney in October 2022, she said he invited her for drinks and told her, “There’s always been something between us, right? ‘
By the end of the night she had gotten drunk. Kindred offered to take her home, but said he had to stop by the courthouse. He asked her to come upstairs to his rooms and sit on the couch with him. Instead, she sat down across from him.
According to the court report, “At one point, Judge Kindred kissed her and grabbed her buttocks. She reported that she did not provoke the kiss. She indicated that it was brief, ‘like hugging,’ and almost immediately afterward, Judge Kindred fall. her home.”
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Less than a week later, they both attended a pizza party hosted by another clerk who still worked for Kindred. He allegedly repeatedly asked her to sit on the bench with him, but she refused, thinking, “Do you now find me openly in front of the clerks?”
Kindred texted her after she left the party; she said they needed to talk in person and asked him to pick her up. Although they started talking in his truck outside her house, it was cold and Kindred suggested they go to the apartment where he was staying.
Upon arrival he went to the bedroom and kept shouting, “come to the bedroom, come to the bedroom.” He lay down on the bed and reportedly asked her to lie with him. She first sat on the corner of the bed and finally agreed to lie down.
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“[H]He started laying hands on me. And so I remember the first time he grabbed my breasts, and I like grabbed his forearm, and I remember thinking he felt really strong and I tried to pull his arm away,” she said the researchers.
“I remember thinking there’s nothing I can do about this, like this is going to happen,” she added. “I remember him saying something about ‘Finally,’ like – because I remember feeling like, yeah, finally, like you’re winning like the game.”
“Like I always felt like this – like this thing that he couldn’t touch and finally felt like he could touch it… He took off my pants. I’m pretty sure I was still wearing a shirt… And then he performed oral sex on me.”
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Later that month, after the two sexual encounters, the clerk said Kindred told her to “keep your head down and shut your mouth” and joked that he could make her life miserable if she said anything.
Although Kindred initially denied any sexual contact, he later admitted under oath that he had lied to the special committee investigating his misconduct, but continued to dispute her story, claiming that the sexual encounters were both consensual.
“I was not the aggressor. I wasn’t being presumptuous. I was honest with it [the law clerk] about the difficult situation I found myself in,” he said. “This brief romantic interlude, while it should have been avoided, was not at all [the law clerk] described.”
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Kindred, who was nominated by the former president Donald Trump was asked to voluntarily resign by the Judicial Council of the 9th Circuit in 2019 over the allegations and filed his official statement letter of resignation to the chairman Joe Biden on July 3 without explanation.
“We conclude that Judge Kindred’s misconduct was pervasive and abusive, constituted sexual harassment, and fostered a hostile work environment that took a personal and professional toll on multiple law clerks,” the board wrote.
Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowskia Republican who endorsed his nomination wrote on X that Kindred’s firing was “more than appropriate… Judges must be held to the highest standards.”