Federal prosecutors have charged Carl Charles, an attorney for LGBTQ+ civil rights group Lambda Legal, with a felony for making a false statement under oath.

An indictment unsealed Monday alleges Charles lied during a judicial inquiry into whether he and other lawyers judge-shopped in a case challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Charles has pleaded not guilty.

In 2022, Alabama made it a felony for doctors to offer puberty blockers, surgical intervention, or hormone therapy to anyone under 19.

Attorneys from numerous law firms and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, including Lambda Legal, immediately filed two suits challenging the law.

When the cases were assigned to U.S. District Judge Liles C. Burke, a Trump appointee, the attorneys withdrew them and refiled them with new plaintiffs.

An investigation conducted by a judicial panel subsequently found that 11 of the lawyers had “purposefully attempted to circumvent the random case assignment procedures of the United States District Courts for the Northern District of Alabama and the Middle District of Alabama” because they saw Burke as a “bad draw.”

In February of this year, Burke sanctioned Charles and attorneys Melody Eagan and Jeffrey Doss for trying to “game the system,” fining Charles $5,000 and recusing Eagan and Doss from the case.

“The lead attorneys in this case—a high-profile challenge to Alabama state law—tried to avoid their assigned judge by voluntarily dismissing one case and filing anew with different plaintiffs in a neighboring federal district court,” Burke’s ruling reads.

Burke alleges that during the investigation, Charles denied making a call to the chambers of U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, a Carter appointee who had previously ruled in favor of transgender plaintiffs. According to Burke, Charles later amended his answers to note that he called Thompson’s clerk, correcting himself within minutes of his initial statement and ascribing his false testimony to a “lapse in memory.”

Burke made apparent he does not believe Charles’ explanation, accusing him of “repeated, intentional, bad-faith misrepresentations of key facts.”

Tuesday, Lambda Legal released a statement in support of Charles, who has appealed Burke’s sanctions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

“This unjustified federal indictment is an outrageous act of governmental overreach,” the statement reads. “Lambda Legal rejects the notion that the U.S. government can punish lawyers and law firms for exercising their First Amendment rights by speaking up on behalf of causes to which government officials object.”

“For more than three years, our colleague, Carl Charles, has been subjected to unprecedented and abusive judicial proceedings, smearing his character and undermining his role in fighting for some of the most vulnerable people in society. We fundamentally disagree with the characterization of the events that underpin this indictment, which ignores the fact that the routine phone call at issue was acknowledged by the court to be entirely legal and proper.”

“We unequivocally stand behind Carl and all of our attorneys, who adhere to the highest ethical and professional standards every day in pursuit of our mission to advance and defend the rights of LGBTQ+ people.”