North Carolina Superior Court Judge Arnold Ogden Jones, II was arrested Wednesday, following a grand jury indictment Tuesday on charges that he bribed an FBI officer.
Jones is the Superior Court Judge for Wayne, Lenoir and Greene counties. According to court documents, in October, he sent a text message to an FBI officer, asking him to access and make copies of text messages of two telephone numbers.
Law enforcement officers are prohibited from getting telephone records without a search warrant and then only if there is probable cause that they contain evidence of a crime. Court documents state that Jones told the FBI officer it was a family matter and he wanted to keep it on the “down low.” He promised the officer his involvement would never be disclosed and the two agreed on a couple of cases of beer as payment. In November, the FBI officer met Jones in Goldsboro to give him a disk that supposedly contained the text messages and Jones paid the officer $100 in lieu of the beer.
Department of Justice officials say the FBI agent acted as an investigator throughout the incident and will not be charged. Jones, who co-chairs the Innocence Inquiry Commission, is not being held. He faces a maximum of 37 years in prison and fines totaling $750,000.
