ATLANTA  — A 67-year-old federal judge’s wild relationship with a stripper started with a lap dance, prosecutors said, and quickly escalated into escapades of prostitution and gun-toting drug deals for cocaine and prescription pills.

Senior Judge Jack T. Camp, a veteran jurist who had achieved a status that allowed him a lighter caseload, now finds himself in a peculiar position, in front of one of his peers, and with lawyers combing through his decisions, wondering whether they have grounds to challenge them.

“I don’t know whether the allegations are true or whether they infected the decision making, but it’s incumbent upon me to raise these issues,” said Gerry Weber, a civil rights attorney.

Camp, a Vietnam War veteran who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, built a reputation for handing out stiff sentences, including for drug convictions. He could face years behind bars on drug and gun charges. The judge’s attorney has said he intends to plead not guilty.

The stripper, who previously had a felony drug trafficking conviction, had been secretly working with the FBI since the spring to build a case against the judge. In exchange, prosecutors pledged not to charge her.

Camp’s relationship with the dancer, who was not identified in court documents, began earlier this year. A day after receiving his first dance, he returned to the Goldrush Showbar for more dances, and added sex and cocaine to his tab, authorities said.

Over the next few months, the two used cocaine and other drugs together, sometimes at the strip club, and the judge would pay $40 to $50 to join her getting high, according to a sworn statement.

In June, the judge followed the stripper to a house in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta to buy drugs, carrying a semiautomatic handgun with him he later told her he brought to protect her, the affidavit said.

The relationship finally unraveled Friday. Camp told the stripper he would try to help with her criminal record and advised her to tell a potential employer who had rejected her application that “it was a minor offense and that one of the judges on the court can explain that to him,” according to the affidavit.

A few hours later, the dancer asked Camp to follow her to the Publix grocery store parking lot in northeast Atlanta to meet a drug dealer. When she said she feared for her safety, authorities said he responded with a dash of bravado: “I not only have my little pistol, I’ve got my big pistol so, uh, we’ll take care of any problems that come up.”