A choose killed himself times just before he was to have been arrested on allegations he had a concealed camera that captured photos of bare boys in his toilet.
Jonathan Newell, 50, had been on depart from his position as a circuit choose in Maryland’s Caroline County considering the fact that July soon after allegations were being made from him.
When FBI agents arrived at his house in Henderson, Maryland, on Friday morning to arrest him on a federal prison grievance they discovered him “suffering from an evident self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
The Maryland US Attorney’s Place of work confirmed that the choose had been pronounced dead at 6.43am.
“Maryland State Police will guide the investigation into the obvious suicide,” prosecutors stated in a assertion.
A neighbour, Kimberly Keith, posted on Facebook that FBI brokers had been stationed exterior the judge’s house, demanding in excess of a loudspeaker for him to occur out.
She mentioned that gunshots experienced been read and an ambulance arrived shortly immediately after.
Prosecutors were being established to demand Mr Newell on federal charges of exploitation of a child.
The legal criticism, which was unsealed on Friday, said that Maryland Point out Law enforcement experienced been named in July following a minor boy claimed to have identified the online video digital camera in the lavatory of the judge’s cabin.
Investigators interviewed two boys, the two minors, who reported they experienced observed the hidden digicam as they “spent the night” at the cabin with Mr Newell.
A person of the boys advised investigators that he was undressing in the rest room when he noticed that the digital camera was on and dealing with the shower in a corner of the area.
(Maryland.gov)
The boys described the incident to their parents, who contacted law enforcement, the complaint states.
Mr Newell denied realizing just about anything about the digital camera, and mentioned that a further grownup male and 4 boys had utilised the cabin the working day right before.
But when getting interviewed, Mr Newell allegedly chewed and swallowed a camera memory card, and a CT scan afterwards showed he experienced ingested a foreign object, in accordance to the criticism.
When authorities carried out searches of Mr Newell’s cabin, house and business office they seized many digital units, which includes a difficult generate they allege contained many movies of younger adult males showering, relationship again to September 2014.
Mr Newell, a Republican, was appointed as a decide by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan in 2016, and commenced a 15-12 months phrase in 2018.
