Man allegedly sought sex favors

A federal judge rejected as too lenient yesterday a proposed plea agreement that would have sent a former Chelsea District Court clerk magistrate to jail for a year for allegedly using his position to seek sexual favors from two women facing prostitution charges.

“I reject it,’’ US District Judge George O’Toole said just moments after listening to Robert Sheketoff, lawyer for defendant James M. Burke, argue in federal court that the proposed sentence of 12 months and a day was sufficient, given that Burke has lost his $84,000-a-year job, as well as his pension.

The two women who brought allegations against Burke sat in the courtroom, and when O’Toole rejected the plea agreement, nodded their heads at the judge’s decision.

Sheketoff said after the hearing that while he and Assistant US Attorney Eugenia Carris have the option of working out another plea agreement, he will not seek one. “I was disappointed, but not surprised,’’ Sheketoff said of O’Toole’s decision.

Burke had pleaded guilty to two counts of deprivation of civil rights under the code of law, but withdrew the guilty plea after the plea agreement was rejected. The two sides will return to court May 6 to begin planning for a trial; Burke faces up to 11 years in prison if convicted.

Carris argued during the hearing that the proposed one-year sentence was appropriate.

“A year and a day is a long time to send anyone to jail who has never been in jail before,’’ she said. Carris also said Burke should not have to serve more time because his offense was not as egregious as a person convicted of drug dealing, which would probably draw a longer sentence.

But one of the alleged victims, who asked to be identified only by her initials, J.T., said outside the courtroom, “How can those lawyers say that what he did wasn’t all that bad, that he didn’t deserve more punishment for what he did?’’

Her lawyer, John Swomley, said, “It’s interesting that the government doesn’t view the abuse of public trust more seriously, that the judge had to step in.’’

Burke allegedly told J.T. he would take care of the prostitution charges against her if she agreed to have sex with him inside an empty courtroom in 2005. He removed the woman from the lockup area, took her to the room and received oral sex from her, according to an FBI affidavit.

Three years later, J.T. was in the Chelsea court with her lawyer, trying to get an old prostitution charge dismissed, when she saw Burke again. She told her lawyer that Burke had approached her when she was in the lockup at the courthouse in 2005, asking her if she was a “working girl’’ and offering to get her case dismissed if she provided sex, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court.

The woman said Burke, who has worked in the court since 1998, then took her into a courtroom, where she performed oral sex on him.

After her lawyer alerted the FBI, the woman began cooperating with agents and secretly recorded conversations with Burke, who allegedly acknowledged their earlier sexual encounter and offered to help her get the new charges dismissed, the affidavit says.

Burke is also accused of threatening last year to lock up another woman, identified in the affidavit by the initials A.C., if she did not agree to his demands for sex. She acquiesced in the courthouse, according to the affidavit.