Booher trial set for next week

Damon Lawrence roanecounty.com

A pretrial hearing for Kent Booher’s upcoming trial was held on Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Knoxville. Booher, a convicted sex offender and disbarred attorney, is charged with felony sexual offense against a minor while on a sex offender registry, sex trafficking of a child, attempted production of child pornography and two counts of enticement.

The trial is scheduled to start on Tuesday, April 13, with jury selection.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Varlan said he plans to seat 12 jurors and three alternates for the trial. In addition to jury selection, the parties discussed several other topics on Wednesday, including Booher’s reported involvement with drugs and whether or not that should be allowed in at trial.

“This is not a drug case,” Booher’s attorney, Russell Greene, said. “This is a case about sex.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kolman disagreed. She told Varlan that Booher gave drugs to his victim to entice her to have sex.

The victim is the same one involved in Booher’s state case. In 2013, he was indicted in Loudon County Criminal Court on three counts of aggravated statutory rape, one count of solicitation of a minor and one count of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. That case settled after he reached a deal with state prosecutors and pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape. The other charges were dismissed. Booher didn’t go to prison, but he was put on the state sex offender registry. Booher had a law practice in Harriman, but that ended when the Tennessee Supreme Court disbarred him because of his conviction.

Booher’s federal trial could last several days.

“We’ll plan to see everybody here bright and early on Tuesday the 13th,” Varlan told the parties at Wednesday’s hearing.

Varlan said this will be the second criminal jury trial he’s presided over since the COVID-19 pandemic started.