U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent of Galveston, Tx., resigned via a hand-delivered letter to two Senate officials who had come to prison to serve a summons on him as part of ongoing impeachment proceedings in U.S. Congress, the Houston Chronicle reports. The resignation of Kent, a convicted felon who had continued to collect his $174,000-a-year salary in prison, was announced to the surprised participants at the first meeting of the Senate's impeachment trial committee yesterday in Washington.
Kent had offered to resign in mid-2010 – a move that angered U.S. House members, who quickly voted to impeach him rather than let him collect his salary for the first year of his 33-month sentence. Kent pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and admitted to sexually molesting two women who worked for him.