Brooklyn Judge Faces Trial on Bribe Charge

The New York Times
By Andy Newman
April 30, 2004

The matrimonial judge, Gerald P. Garson, faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of bribe-taking. Prosecutors say that for years, a lawyer who appeared frequently before him in divorce and in Justice Gerald P. Garson arriving custody cases in State Supreme Court supplied him;
 in Court.  He is accused of taking with food, drink and fine cigars, and that in return 
gifts  from a lawyer he coached   Garson coached the lawyer in how to argue some
 before hearing his cases.          some of those cases.

Yesterday the judge in Justice Garson's case, Steven W. Fisher, dismissed six felony counts of receiving rewards for official misconduct. Prosecutors had based those charges on accusations that Justice Garson had violated rules of judicial conduct, and Justice Fisher held that breaking those rules would not be a crime but rather a matter for administrative discipline.

8 Raps vs. Garson Tossed

By Denise Buffa
New York Post
April 30, 2004

Brooklyn Judge Gerald Garson left court smiling yesterday after most of the charges against him were dismissed - with the exception of three, including the top bribe count that carries seven years in prison.

"I'm very happy," Garson said in his first public statements since his arrest last April on bribe-

receiving and misconduct charges connected to a divorce-fixing probe.

"It isn't easy, but we'll come through all right and be vindicated," the judge said as he left Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Garson and his lawyer, Ron Fischetti, still must fight a felony charge.

"Fischetti shouldn't be opening the champagne," Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said.

Garson remains charged with felony bribe-receiving, for allegedly accepting lunches, dinners and drinks from lawyer Paul Siminovsky in exchange for giving him favorable treatment.

Judge Steven Fisher dismissed eight out of 11 charges against Garson - six felony counts of receiving a reward for official misconduct and two of three official misconduct charges - for lack of evidence. The counts of receiving a reward were based on judicial conduct rules and can't be elevated to crimes, Fischer said.

NY Lawyers Questioned Over Leak of
Videotape Of NY Judge Accepting Cash

Garson 'Bribe' Vid

By Denise Buffa
New York Post
March 24, 2004

A secretly recorded video shows embattled Brooklyn judge Gerald Garson trying to turn down an alleged bribe before relenting and stuffing the money in his desk.

The video, which was aired last night on Fox 5 News, shows Garson initially accepting an envelope containing $1,000 in cash from Brooklyn lawyer Paul Simonovsky.

Prosecutors say Garson gave Simonovsky lucrative legal assignments and advice on cases he was handling in his court.

But Simonovsky was working with investigators and the bills were marked.

Garson could be seen putting some of the money in his pocket before returning the dough to the envelope and calling Simonovsky back to his robing room.

"That was a lot of money. I don't want it . . . I appreciate it," Garson said as he tried to hand Simonovsky the envelope back. "No, no, no, please take it back."

Simonovsky refused and Garson put the cash back in his desk drawer.

                                  Judge Steamed over Bugs

By Denise Buffa
New York Post
March 23, 2004

Lawyers for a Brooklyn judge accused of receiving bribes argued yesterday that the Brooklyn DA's office had no right to bug the jurist's robing room, partly because an informant said wheeling and dealing was going on in the judge's chambers - in another courthouse.

The lawyers argued that a shady Israeli businessman, Nissim Elmann - who allegedly scoured courthouse hallways for clients, claiming he had influence over Judge Gerald Garson - had told investigators that Garson made his decisions behind closed doors, in his chambers at 360 Adams St.

"He says that the real deals go on in his chambers," said Abraham Abramovsky, a member of Garson's defense team. "The only place they had probable cause to put it in was the chambers."

Garson's courtroom and robing room were across the street, at 210 Joralemon St.

"If he said the real deal goes on in chambers and it's in a different building, why would you go into the robing room?" asked Judge Steve Fisher, who's to decide by April 29 the motions to suppress the evidence garnered from the electronic surveillance.

At issue is whether Brooklyn prosecutors ultimately will be able to show a jury considering Garson's fate video footage of the judge accepting $1,000 and a box of cigars from Paul Siminovsky, a lawyer linked to Elmann.

Garson has pleaded not guilty to charges including bribe-receiving - for allegedly giving Siminovsky lucrative legal assignments in exchange for gifts, including dinners.

Pol Boss Sues 'Bribe' Judge

Adam Miller
New York Post
February 25, 2004

Political powerbroker Ravi Batra yesterday filed a defamation lawsuit against embattled Brooklyn Judge Gerald Garson, claiming the jurist smeared his reputation by falsely accusing him of being involved in a cash-for-judgeships scheme.

Garson, who has been charged with taking payoffs to fix divorce cases, told Brooklyn prosecutors last March that Batra, a close pal of beleaguered Brooklyn Democratic boss Clarence Norman, was selling judgeships in Brooklyn, according to the suit.

Norman has been charged with stealing $5,000 in party funds and $7,000 from the state Legislature and pressuring two judges to hire favored consultants in exchange for his party's nomination.

In the suit filed in Manhattan Civil Court, Batra said Garson "perpetrated a fraud upon the DA's office by making statements against Ravi Batra known at the time made to be false."

He added that Garson "had absolute personal knowledge that [he] had no role in any judgeship-for-sale scheme in Brooklyn."

2 Plead Guilty of Conspiring to Sway Judge

By William Glaberson
New York Times
February 6, 2004

A Brooklyn rabbi and his daughter pleaded guilty yesterday to giving $5,000 to an intermediary to influence a Brooklyn Supreme Court justice who has since been charged with receiving bribes and other offenses.

After the court session, Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, told reporters that the plea agreement was a significant development in his investigation of the suspended judge, Gerald P. Garson.

"The house of cards has begun to fall,'' Mr. Hynes said. But he said he would not speculate whether yesterday's plea deals would pressure the suspected intermediary, Nissim Elmann, to cooperate with prosecutors.

The pleas by the rabbi, Ezra Zifrani, 67, and his daughter, Esther Weitzner, 37, included a promise to cooperate in the investigation. In exchange for pleading to one misdemeanor conspiracy charge, they are each to be sentenced to 210 hours of community service and three years of probation.

But in court they both indicated that they did not know whether the $5,000 was actually paid to Justice Garson. In statements, they each said only that the intermediary "clearly implied he was going to bribe Judge Gerald Garson" in November 2002. The judge was handling a custody dispute between Ms. Weitzner and her ex-husband involving their five children.

Mr. Elmann, a Brooklyn electronic dealer, is facing bribery and conspiracy charges.

A lawyer for Mr. Elmann, Gerald J. McMahon, said yesterday that his client did nothing but give advice to people who asked about his experiences as a former participant in a court case. He said Mr. Elmann would go to trial and be acquitted.

The lawyer for Justice Garson, Ronald P. Fischetti, said it was irresponsible for Mr. Hynes to suggest that yesterday's plea deals were important. He said the reference to a "house of cards" falling by Mr. Hynes, who is called Joe by acquaintances, was misleading because Mr. Fischetti said there was no evidence that Mr. Garson received any bribes.

"I don't know what deck of cards Joe Hynes is playing with,'' Mr. Fischetti said.

'Bribe' Rabbi Plea Deal Due

by Denise Buffa
New York Post
February 5, 2004

A Brooklyn rabbi and his daughter are expected to plead guilty today to conspiracy to bribe the judge who was handling the woman's child-custody case, their lawyer said.

The plea deal would spare them jail time.

Rabbi Ezra Zifrani, 66, and his daughter, Esther Weitzner, 36, allegedly gave a middleman $5,000 to have Judge Gerald Garson - charged with receiving a bribe - fix the custody case in favor of Weitzner, authorities have said.

"Rabbi Zifrani and Esther Weitzner were victimized by a corruption scheme" and had to play along "to save Esther Weitzner from constant adverse rulings in Judge Garson's court," said their lawyer, Ephraim Savitt.

The planned pleas are considered key in the corruption case that rocked the Brooklyn court system.

When the rabbi and his daughter confess what they did wrong, they are expected to implicate the suspected middleman, Nissim Elmann, and the judge, a source said.

Elmann and Garson have maintained their innocence.

                         'Bribe' Judge: Toss Tapes

by Denise Buffa
New York Post
December 17, 2003

Judge Gerald Garson yesterday asked the court to bar wiretaps and video surveillance tapes from his upcoming bribery trial.

The request was included in a lengthy motion seeking a dismissal of the charges altogether, claiming that, at the most, Garson's case should be considered nothing more than a breach of judicial conduct rules rather than a criminal offense.

Prosecutors launched their probe of the Brooklyn Supreme Court justice last year after Frieda Hanimov, who temporarily lost custody of her son,
Gerald Garson - Illegal Evidence  told prosecutors that her husband had paid off Garson to rule against her.

From last December through March, investigators placed video cameras in Garson's robing room and tapped his phone.

The tapes, allegedly showing Garson taking bribes, are a crucial piece of the prosecution's case.

Garson's lawyers, in the court papers, said the videotapes and wire taps were obtained unlawfully because prosecutors relied on what they called an unsubstantiated tip from Hanimov, who "had every reason to be bitter at the presiding judge."

Asked for comment on Garson's motion, Hynes spokesman Jerry Schmetterer said, "We will respond at the proper time in court."

The criminal case against Garson has fueled a wide-ranging probe into judicial corruption in Brooklyn, including Garson's claim to investigators that some judges had paid political leaders for their nomination to the bench.

As a result of the probe, Democratic Party leader Clarence Norman Jr. and his top lieutenant, Jeffrey Feldman, have been indicted on charges that include allegedly forcing judicial candidates to pay $50,000 to preferred consultants in order to be nominated.

Garson is one of seven defendants including his retired law clerk, Paul Sarnell, facing charges in connection with the alleged scheme to fix divorce cases.He is accused of taking bribes that included cash, cigars, dinners at expensive restaurants and trips.

                               Scandal Divorce Papers 'Vanish'

Denise Buffa
New York Post
November 7, 2003

-- The divorce records of a man accused of trying to bribe a judge to fix the case have vanished, his lawyer said yesterday.

"No one seems to know where they are," attorney Michael Kaper said during a hearing in a domestic-abuse case against Avraham Levi.

Levi allegedly threatened to kill his wife about a month after his arrest on a charge of trying to bribe Judge Gerald Garson - who himself faces a bribe-taking charge.

After Levi's arrest, his divorce decree against his wife, Sigal, was tossed out.

Today, the Levis are due in matrimonial court for a hearing on whether to retry their bitter divorce case.

Kaper says that would require finding new copies of the missing records.

Levi, 49, says he's innocent of bribery and domestic abuse.

              Court Papers Offer New Details In Garson Case

Daniel Wise
New York Law Journal
09-29-2003

A bill OF particulars detailing the bribery case against Brooklyn Justice Gerald P. Garson contains new details about what prosecutors claim was a quid pro quo of influence peddling by an attorney close to the judge.

But Justice Garson's defense team characterized the three-page court document, which was made public late last week, as a desperate attempt to find something that might "stick" against the embattled judge.

Justice Garson was charged in a superseding indictment last month with bribery in the third degree, a felony carrying a maximum penalty of 7 years in prison. He faces 10 other counts of receiving rewards for official misconduct, official misconduct and receiving unlawful gratuities.

In response to the defense team's questions to prosecutors eliciting details of the bribery charge, the bill of particulars listed a number of allegedly improper actions by Justice Garson. They include awarding law guardianships to attorney Paul Siminovsky, who is cooperating with the prosecution; providing ex parte advice to Mr. Siminovsky about a case the judge was handling; granting Mr. Siminovsky's requests for adjournments; giving him "ready" access to the robing room; and treating him with "more courtesy" than was given to many other lawyers appearing before the judge.

In response to a question about what benefits had been given to "influence" Justice Garson, the bill cited his acceptance of "meals, beverages, loans and cigars."

Taking aim at the prosecution's inclusion of adjournments and courtesies as actions that had been improperly influenced, one of Justice Garson's lawyers, Diarmuid White, derided the bill in an interview Friday as "a classic instance of throwing as much against the wall as you can to see what will stick."

With reference to the "benefits" itemized in the bill, Mr. White said he has no idea what the prosecution is referring to in terms of loans. Though, he added, the use of the term "loans" is a step back from the prosecution's prior description of the judge as having accepted cash payments and in one instance a $1,000 referral fee. Overall, Mr. White said, the bill revealed a prosecution built upon "a whole haystack of straws."

Jerry Schmetterer, spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, countered that "there is nothing new about defendants attempting to minimize the criminal charges against their clients. The fact is that these charges carry serious jail time upon conviction."

Mr. White also belittled the bill's description of three misdemeanor official misconduct counts. The bill described the "benefit" given to Justice Garson as "a box of cigars" and the improper act he had performed as the "acceptance of a box of cigars." In having the benefit and act "collapse into one," Mr. White said, the prosecution had designed an argument that is "at the same time circular and a stretch."

Mr. White also criticized the prosecution's reliance on Judiciary Law §§18, which prohibits judges from accepting "a fee or other compensation" for giving advice in matters before them.

"The notion that a cigar could be a fee is bizarre," Mr. White said.

Brooklyn Divorcee Wants Garson Judgment Tossed

By Denise Buffa
New York Post
September 23, 2003

-- A Brooklyn woman yesterday asked to have her June 2000 divorce thrown out because it was handled by embattled Judge Gerald Garson, who faces trial for allegedly accepting bribes to fix divorce cases.

Jacqueline Silberman, administrative judge for matrimonial matters in Brooklyn Supreme Court, responded by arranging to provide Melvina Mullings with free legal help - a service she's making available to anyone whose divorce was handled by Garson, 69. A transcript of Mullings' divorce proceedings shows that she was awarded $70,000 in cash and a percentage of the future income generated by rental properties that she and her husband jointly owned.Mullings, in court documents, claims she was entitled to a bigger share of the $300,000 in the income the properties earned through the years.

Earlier this month, Eileen Horty, the ex-wife of a retired city cop, became the first divorcéée to take advantage of Silberman's offer of free legal help.

Silberman has said that a team of 30 volunteer lawyers is reviewing about 30 divorces that were handled by Garson.

She said they will file motions to reopen any cases they find suspicious.

Brooklyn Judge Pleads Innocent to Bribery Charge

The Associated Press
New York Daily News
September 9, 2003

A Brooklyn judge pleaded innocent Tuesday to bribery charges alleging he took cash and gifts, including a box of cigars, in a scheme to fix divorce cases.

Gerald Garson, 70, was indicted last month on charges of third-degree bribe receiving and official misconduct. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 2 1/2 to seven years in prison.

Authorities began investigating Garson in October, after a woman reported that a courthouse con man told her that her child custody case allegedly could be fixed by bribing the judge. Investigators later secretly recorded a lawyer meeting Garson in his chambers and plying him with the cigars and cash, a criminal complaint said.

The case sparked a grand jury investigation into allegations that civil judgeships —— with annual salaries of $125,000 or more —— are for sale.

A pretrial hearing was set for Oct. 14.

Garson Informer's Biz Whine

by Denise Buffa
New York Post
September 6, 2003

During the probe of a Brooklyn judge, a lawyer who allegedly bribed him was caught on tape "grousing" that the crackdown on court corruption was losing him business, court papers say.

Lawyer Paul Siminovsky was appointed to 13 divorce cases by the now-suspended Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson - payment for which amounted to tens of thousands of dollars in fees, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes said.

In exchange, Siminovsky treated the judge to meals and money.

"I'll get two case [sic] from Garson now . . . And I got to still take him to lunch," Siminovsky griped, Garson's lawyers noted in court papers filed yesterday, quoting the New York Law Journal.

Garson's high-powered defense lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, was making the point that even after hearing what Siminovsky said, the grand jury did not originally indict the judge on a bribe-

receiving charge. Siminovsky has become a government witness against the judge.
 

Arrest of Judge May Reopen Divorce Cases

By Andy Newman
New York Times
August 30, 2003

The arrest of Gerald P. Garson, the Brooklyn matrimonial judge accused of taking bribes to show favoritism in divorce cases, has opened the door for a potential overhaul of the state's system of selecting judges, a process that could take years.

But the task of assessing what specific damage Justice Garson may have done to the ordinary people who appeared before him has already begun in earnest.

Since Justice Garson's arrest, more than two dozen lawyers have volunteered to sift through papers and meet with litigants who suspect that they got a raw deal —— a ruling granting custody of a child to an unfit parent, or a financial settlement weighted unfairly to one side.

Now one of the lawyers has filed the first motion to reopen a case that Justice Garson presided over. It will not be the last.

The lawyer, Susan L. Bender, said yesterday that she intended to move to reopen another case soon. Another veteran divorce lawyer recruited for the effort, Franklin S. Bonem, said that he saw possible tampering in all three of the cases he had examined, and that he intended to reopen them, too.

State court officials say they have so far received 30 requests for legal help from people who appeared before Justice Garson. An additional 70 people or more have come forward to complain but have not requested help yet.

"This may mushroom," said Jacqueline W. Silbermann, the state's chief administrative judge for matrimonial cases. "We don't know what we're facing."

The lawyers are looking either for errors of law or evidence that Justice Garson abused his legal discretion.

"We have to read every document in the file, in the court record and our clients' notes, and go through all their recollections anecdotally to see if there's anything there," said Ms. Bender, a former president of the Women's Bar Association of the State of New York.

It is no small task. The first case she worked on took 25 hours of lawyer time, she said, while the second one will take closer to 40 hours.

Justice Silbermann said she asked the state's bar associations to ask their members to work pro bono because it did not seem fair to force people who may have been victimized by Justice Garson to choose between representing themselves and paying for more lawyers.

A. Thomas Levin, the president of the New York State Bar Association, said his group occasionally pitches in when disasters with huge legal implications for ordinary people strike New York.

The only other time he could remember it happening was after Sept. 11.

"I wouldn't put them in the same class," Mr. Levin said. "But this is definitely an unusual event. The courts were just being inundated with people."

Justice Garson, a judge in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn since 1997, was arrested in April on numerous charges arising from his relationship with a lawyer named Paul Siminovsky, who often appeared before him as the lawyer for one of the divorcing parties or when Justice Garson appointed him to be a guardian of children in custody cases.

Mr. Siminovsky has told prosecutors that for more than a year he plied the judge with meals, drinks, gifts, trips and cash. In return, prosecutors say, Justice Garson would privately coach Mr. Siminovsky on what questions to ask and what arguments to use before him in court.

The lawyers reviewing Justice Garson's cases are not being asked to reach legal conclusions or to represent their clients to the end. Ms. Bender said their job was simply to determine "whether in our opinion the ultimate awards did not pass the sniff test."

Mr. Bonem said his cases all failed with flying colors. "In each of the three cases, on the face of it, there's something there," he said. "It's enough for a court to look at."

In Ms. Bender's first case, which she filed to reopen two weeks ago, the parties signed off on a financial settlement before the discovery process was complete, something that their lawyers should not have let them do. "All the financial information had not been reviewed, and the settlement was premature," she said.

That case will go before Justice Silbermann on Sept. 22 for a ruling on whether it should be reopened. If the judge agrees to reopen it, the ex-spouses will be invited to relive one of the most unpleasant experiences of their lives. "They're frightened," Ms. Bender said of her clients.

The state courts and the bar associations have not worked out the details of who would pay for full legal do-overs. But Justice Silbermann said neither of the divorced parties should have to pick up the tab.

"We have an obligation," she said, "to maintain the people's trust in the court system that we will do the right thing."

Prosecution Contends Change to
Constitution Is Fatal to Garson Claim
 

Daniel Wise
New York Law Journal
08-26-2003

Too much has changed in the last 24 years for a New York Court of Appeals precedent to force the dismissal of what have now become the lesser charges against Justice Gerald P. Garson, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office contends in a brief made public yesterday.

In an Article 78 proceeding filed in July, Justice Garson argued that the Court of Appeals 1979 ruling in People v. La Carrubba, 46 NY2d 658, required dismissal of all charges filed against the judge at that point because, even if proven, they amounted to at most an ethical violation, not a crime.

In a filing last week, prosecutors countered that in 1977, three years after the events at issue in La Carrubba, the state Constitution was amended to explicitly subject judges to "rules of conduct" promulgated by the court system. And subsequent to the La Carrubba ruling, the prosecution contended, the court system adopted a beefed up version of the Code of Judicial Conduct making mandatory prior standards that had been aspirational.

Justice Garson's lawyer, Ronald P. Fischetti, yesterday retorted that the constitutional amendment "adds no teeth to the prosecution's argument." La Carrubba bars the prosecution from "bootstrapping a disciplinary violation into a crime," he said.

When Justice Garson filed the Article 78 seeking dismissal of all charges against him, the top count was receiving a reward for official misconduct, which carries a maximum penalty of 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison. But, two weeks later on Aug. 5, prosecutors obtained an indictment upgrading the charges to include one count of bribery in the third degree, which has a maximum penalty of 2 1/3 to 7 years.

The filing of the bribery count, which was not tied to a code violation, means that the decision made by Queens Supreme Court Justice Steven W. Fisher on the Article 78 will not be dispositive. Even if Justice Fisher, who is presiding over this case, should dismiss all the felony and misdemeanor "official misconduct" counts, the bribery count will remain.

Mr. Fischetti, however, said yesterday that he will move shortly to dismiss the bribery count.

In its most recent filing, the prosecution provided more details on six counts of receiving a reward for official misconduct that formed the core of the original indictment. According to the brief, one count charged Justice Garson with receiving a box of cigars for improperly giving lawyer Paul Siminovsky —— a cooperating witness —— ex parte advice on a matter that Mr. Siminovsky was litigating before Justice Garson. The other five counts, according to the brief, related to Justice Garson receiving fees for referring cases to Mr. Siminovsky. The clients in two of those cases were lawyers and the third case involved the son of a former judge.
One client was Keith A. Kleinick, a partner in Weitz, Kleinick & Weitz, the principal firm affiliated with litigator Johnnie Cochran in New York City; the second client was Raymond A. Raskin, a negligence lawyer; the third was Dominick Aiello, a non-lawyer and the son of former Kings County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Ronald J. Aiello.

Both Mr. Raskin and former Judge Aiello said all fees had been paid directly to Mr. Siminovsky and they had no knowledge of what he did with those the funds, including making a referral fee. Mr. Kleinick was on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

The prosecution contended that, by receiving a referral fee, Justice Garson received a reward for improper conduct —— using the prestige of his office to send clients to Mr. Siminovsky.

In the La Carrubba case, the Court of Appeals reversed an official misconduct conviction against a Suffolk County judge who dismissed a traffic violation against a friend. The Court reasoned that a code violation standing alone could not support a criminal charge.

Rules Claimed Mandatory

In addition to the intervening constitutional amendment contained in Article VI §§20(b) of the state Constitution, the court system itself promulgated Rules of Conduct based on the Code of Judicial Conduct in the years since La Carrubba was decided, the prosecution brief pointed out.

Court rules expressly require that judges "shall not" engage in unauthorized ex parte conversations [22 NYCRR §§100.3(B)(6)] and shall not "lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests" of others [NYCRR §§100.2(c)], the brief stated. At the time La Carrubba was decided, the brief noted, the Code of Judicial Conduct, instead of setting forth "mandated" rules, used words such as "should" and "should not" to connote appropriate standards of conduct.

Mr. Fischetti ridiculed the notion that judges would breach ethical rules if they refer friends or relatives to a lawyer. "I've received referrals from judges and so have both my co-counsel" in Justice Garson's case, he said. To construe the rule to apply to a referral, even where no fee is involved, would place almost every judge in violation of it, he said.

But prosecutors asserted Justice Garson's contention that La Carrubba bars the prosecution of judicial code violations "ultimately would lead to greater corruption within the judicial system, and would thereby undermine public confidence in the fairness of the judicial system."

Working on the prosecution brief were Michael F. Vecchione, chief of the Rackets Bureau, John Dixon, deputy chief of the bureau, and Assistant District Attorneys Leonard Joblove and Seth M. Lieberman.