Maryland judge charged with child sex abuse dies by suicide

A Maryland judge took his own life this week and was found by federal agents who had shown up to arrest him in a child sex abuse case.

FBI agents on Friday found Jonathan Newell, 50, “suffering from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” and he was pronounced dead at 6:43 a.m., the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office said in statement.

The Caroline County Circuit Judge was accused of secretly recording children in a bathroom at his fishing cabin, The Washington Post reports.

Criminal records unsealed this week said that when authorities questioned Newell at his cabin in July, he allegedly ingested a memory card he removed from the camera used in the alleged recordings, according to the outlet.

A medical report cited in the complaint notes that at a nearby hospital the following day, CT scans confirmed Newell had ingested the card, according to the Post.

A former public defender, Newell served as Caroline County’s top prosecutor for over a decade, wherein he, according to the Times Record of Denton, Md., “focused on felony drug, sex offense and child abuse cases, plus a dozen murder cases,” the Post reports.

Newell became a judge in 2016 and, according to court records, sometimes hosted underage guests at his cabin, the Post reports.

Authorities spoke with nine teens who had been to the cabin or the judge’s home, or both, according to the paper.

The day before he was found dead, Newell had been charged with one count of sexual exploitation of a child, according to the Post.

Those looking to obtain counseling concerning the matter are asked to contact the FBI Baltimore Field Office at 410-265-8080.

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