Feds Arrest Nashville Judge Casey Moreland

NASHVILLE, TN — Davidson County General Sessions judge Casey Moreland is facing obstruction of justice and witness tampering charges, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Jack Smith, acting U.S. Attorney for Middle Tennessee, announced the charges against the judge, 59, at a press conference. Moreland was taken into custody earlier Tuesday.

"The allegations set forth in the indictment set forth egregious abuses of power by a judge sitting here in Nashville," Smith said.

Moreland was under investigation by the FBI, which was investigating allegations of official misconduct, including reports he intervened in a traffic stop involving a woman with whom he had a personal relationship and that he waived jail time for the man who would become his son-in-law.

The U.S. Attorney's office alleges that Moreland attempted to pay a woman more than $6,000 to recant allegations she'd made against him and then later concocted a scheme to plant drugs on the woman and then have her pulled over so that she would be arrested and "her credibility destroyed."

According to an affidavit from an FBI agent, a man, who had initially lied to the Bureau, said he and Moreland communicated via a so-called "burner phone." On March 11, the source met with Moreland and told the judge he had been meeting with a woman making public claims about the judge and that she had agreed to sign an affidavit saying she'd lied. Moreland gave the source $5,100 and a draft of an affidavit for the woman to sign, according to the complaint.

"This right here gets me out of trouble,” Moreland said, according to the FBI. Moreland also instructed the man to get the woman "liquored up." Later, Moreland was told the woman wanted to make some changes to his draft affidavit, but he offered $1,000 for her to sign it unchanged.

The FBI says Moreland also concocted a scheme to have drugs planted on the woman and then have those drugs discovered during a traffic stop arranged by him in an effort to destroy the woman's credibility.

Moreland made his initial court appearance Tuesday and Smith said that Friday prosecutors will ask a judge to keep Moreland, who has been on the bench in Nashville since 1998, in custody.