The former Alabama judge accused of paddling male inmates and forcing them to have sex with him in exchange for leniency in the courtroom was found not guilty Monday.

Henry Thomas, the first African American to serve on the Mobile County Circuit Court, had denied the accusations of assault, sodomy and sexual abuse, arguing that racism fueled the charges against him and that the inmates who testified had been manipulated by prosecutors. His attorney, Robert Clark, had promised that his client would be exonerated in the courtroom.

Thomas, 48, never denied checking inmates out of the Mobile County Jail and bringing them into his makeshift office, but he contended that he used his personal sessions with the inmates to mentor them.
 
Among those testifying against Thomas was an inmate who said he could not explain how his semen got on the carpet of the tiny office but that Thomas had spanked him with a belt on several occasions. The spankings occurred inside a jury room at a Mobile, Ala., fraternity house, CNN reports. Another witness said that Thomas convinced him to let the him hear his case, instead of a jury. Thomas eventually convicted the man of lesser charges and sent him to a boot camp for 90 days, he said, adding that the judge spanked his bare bottom a dozen or so times at the courthouse.
 
"All of them [the alleged victims] were given preferential treatment at some point," Nicki Patterson, chief assistant district attorney for Mobile County, said earlier this month. "And ultimately, when some of them refused to continue participating [in the activities], they were given what I would view as excessive sentences. But certainly while the inmates were involved with the activities we allege, the state would say, it was extremely lenient sentences."

After the verdicts were read, CNN reports, Thomas cried. “He hugged me and he hugged his wife. And he had a courtroom full of supporters. It all worked out in the end," the attorney said.

Thomas still must battle the Alabama State Bar Association to have his law license reinstated. He was suspended in March after being indicted.