GALVESTON, Texas -- Indicted U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent will continue to preside over cases unless Congress impeaches him or the 5th Judicial Council places him on leave, the district’s top judge said.

Kent, 59, is charged with two counts of abusive sexual contact and one count of attempted aggravated sexual abuse based on a complaint his former case manager filed against him last year. The charges make him the first federal judge to be charged with sex crimes.

If convicted, he faces a maximum of life in prison for the abuse charge and two years in prison for the contact charges.

The Constitution requires Kent, who was appointed to the court for life in 1990, continue to collect his $165,000 annual salary and benefits unless he resigns or Congress removes him. The only way federal judges can be removed is for the House of Representatives to vote to impeach and for the Senate to vote to convict.

Kent was ordered to appear before U.S. Circuit Judge Edward C. Prado at 10 a.m. Wednesday to respond to the charges, but a special judge not appointed to the Southern District of Texas will oversee his trial.

Kent is accused of touching his former case manager, Cathy McBroom, in sexually unwelcome ways and attempting to force her to preform oral sex on him.

Kent was reprimanded by the Judicial Council of the 5th District, suspended for four months and federal investigators started probing the claims.

It’s not certain when his case goes to trial, but Rusty Hardin, McBroom’s attorney, said he expected it to move “fairly quickly.”

The indictments won’t change how the Southern District of Texas oversees its cases, Chief U.S. District Judge Hayden Head said.

While the charges are pending, Kent will preside over his existing cases and get assigned new cases, Head said. He won’t return to the Galveston district, where he was the sole presiding judge for almost two decades.

Instead, he’ll continue to work from the Houston district courthouse and be barred from hearing cases alleging sexual misconduct and those in which the federal government is a party, based on restrictions imposed in a December order from the 5th Circuit Judicial Council.

Kent wouldn’t be impeached unless the House Judiciary Committee took his case. Calls to the committee’s spokesman weren’t returned Friday. The committee previously said it would wait until the criminal probe was over before deciding whether to pursue impeachment.