MOBILE, Alabama (PNN) - October 5, 2009 - A former judge is facing life in prison after being charged with sexually abusing male inmates in exchange for leniency.

Circuit Judge Herman Thomas, who was once the Democrat Party’s choice to be the first black federal judge in south Alabama, is accused of bringing inmates to his office and spanking them with a paddle.

His trial for charges of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault, and ethics violations is set to begin today.

The 48-year-old insists he is innocent and claims he was trying to mentor the inmates.

Thomas’s defense lawyer, Robert “Cowboy Bob” Clark, has branded the accusers “lying felons” who are trying to wreck the career of “a prestigious member of the BAR for over 20 years.”

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a leading civil rights group, has defended Thomas and claims race is behind his prosecution.

Thomas and his attorney blame the charges on politicians who don't like him.

“There is no doubt that people assisted these inmates in telling these lies on me,” Thomas said in April.

In an echo of sex allegations made against black Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Thomas's lawyer called the indictment “a high-tech lynching”.

“They don't like uppity black folks, and that's what they consider Herman,” added Clark.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Nicki Patterson said authorities began looking at Thomas after he changed a jail sentence in 2006 for his cousin, former Mobile County school commissioner David Thomas, even though the case was being handled by another judge.

Other cases that Thomas had taken over from other judges without their approval soon surfaced, she said.

Some inmates in those cases described being checked out of the jail for meetings with Thomas in his car or in his private office in the county courthouse.

First there were reports of inmates having to pull down their underwear for spankings with a wooden paddle. Then came allegations of oral and anal sex, according to court records.

Noting that each of the alleged victims is black, Patterson says jail checkout records back up inmates' claims about trips to Thomas' private office, and other inmates spotted marks after paddlings.

There also is other evidence, according to court records, including one inmate's seminal fluid on the office carpet.

The inmates also were able to describe in detail Thomas' unmarked windowless office.

Thomas stepped down from the bench in 2007 after the allegations of paddling surfaced and just ahead of a judicial ethics trial that could have forced him out of office.

He was indicted on the more-serious charges this past spring by a Mobile County grand jury. If convicted of the most serious charges - sodomy and kidnapping - he faces from 20 years to life in prison.