Federal prosecutors want former senior federal judge Jack Camp to be treated like every other similarly-situated criminal offender and given prison time.

Camp was arrested on Oct. 1 by FBI agents, who were tipped off by an exotic dancer at an Atlanta strip club that Camp had purchased drugs from her and they had sex and used drugs together. Subsequently, he was charged with unlawful purchase, possession and use of cocaine, marijuana, Hydrocodone and Roxycodone and illegal possession of firearms.

On Nov. 19, Camp pleaded guilty before Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan to charges of unlawful possession of controlled substances and also helping the stripper, a convicted felon, come into possession of the drugs. The judge also pleaded guilty to giving a government laptop to the stripper. The charges carry up to four years in prison.

Camp has also submitted his resignation from the bench to U.S. District Chief Judge Julie E. Carnes.

The U.S. Probation Office has suggested that Camp be sentenced ranging from a mandatory minimum 15 days to six months.

However, in a formal sentencing memorandum filed in U.S. District Court in Atlanta late Friday, federal prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section in Washington said Camp's conduct has dishonored his community, his family and our system of justice, and violated the very laws he swore an oath to uphold and hence, his proposed prison sentence could be enhanced.

His actions, the prosecutors said, cast dark aspersions on the criminal justice system and put the very integrity of the federal courts at issue.

The prosecutors said Camp should be subjected to the enhanced penalties and mandatory minimum sentence, which according to their sentencing memo is five years, as he not only aided and abetted an individual in procuring illegal drugs but also knowingly and intentionally assisted a person who had been previously convicted of a controlled substance offense in her possession of illegal controlled substances.

Camp, the prosecutors said, had once remarked to the stripper, who went to buy drugs from an undercover federal agent, Let me let you pay him because you've already got a [criminal] record, I don't.

The prosecutors also noted that though Camp's plea did not include a federal gun charge, which carries a maximum 10-year penalty with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, at the time of his arrest, he was armed with two firearms.

Though Camp has acknowledged that he has suffered a loss of reputation, his livelihood and the trust of his family, he also owes a debt to society for his conduct, the memo stated.

The memo also noted that from Oct. 1, 2009, to Sept. 30, 2010, of 802 federal cases where illegal drug possession was the primary offense, 64.17 percent of the offenders were sentenced to prison terms rather than probation.

Hence, the court should therefore fashion a sentence that treats [the] defendant like every other similarly-situated criminal offender and Judge Hogan could enhance Camp's proposed prison sentence under federal sentencing guidelines, it stated.

Camp will be sentenced on March 11.

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