This site aims to shed light on events that played out in a federal court in America’s heartland. It traces the actions of a small group of people whose personal interests and connections raise troubling questions about how justice is served in a place that often escapes mainstream attention.

The people whose lives intersected in that courtroom include a federal judge known for her harsh sentences who for years invested in private prisons, a bankruptcy lawyer who, evidence indicates, lied on the stand in a case from which she personally benefited, and an orthodox rabbi given a virtual life sentence for a crime that normally would be much more lightly punished.

Our focus here is on one case, but its facts prompt questions about fairness and transparency throughout the judicial system, and invite scrutiny of more than two thousand cases ajudicated by this judge while she held stock in GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America.

The number of inmates in the U.S. increased dramatically during the years this judge held her stock, and the number held in private prisons soared. One could argue that a single judge’s actions had little effect on the profitabily of billion dollar companies. But the idea that a federal judge has any financial interest whatsoever in the sentences she metes out profoundly undermines our trust in a system in which trust is crucial.