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Gerald P. "Gerry" Garson (born August 3, 1932) is a former New York Supreme Court Justice who heard matrimonial divorce and child custody cases in Brooklyn. He was convicted in 2007 of accepting bribes to manipulate the outcome of divorce proceedings. Garson was imprisoned from June 2007 until December 2009.

In the bribery scheme, a "fixer" in Brooklyn told parties in divorce litigation that for a price he could help make sure their case was heard by a sympathetic judge. He would then refer the litigants to a lawyer who had given Garson meals, cigars, and cash in return for favorable treatment. The fixer and the lawyer would then bribe court employees to override the system, which is supposed to ensure that cases get assigned to judges randomly, and arrange to have them assigned to Garson. Garson would then privately coach the lawyer on what questions to ask in court and what arguments to use in divorce cases the lawyer had before Garson, and then rule in favor of the lawyer.

The New York Times observed: "It was news that confirmed every sneaking suspicion, every paranoid fantasy of anyone who had ever felt wronged in a divorce court."

Early career

Garson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

A U.S. Air Force veteran, he founded a law firm in 1962. In the 1970s and 1980s, Garson had a lucrative practice as a lawyer for owners of taxi fleets, defending taxi drivers and owners in negligence suits. He was also a treasurer from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s for a political action committee arm of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, the Brooklyn Democrats, having been appointed by his former law practice colleague Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden.

In 1984, while he was in private practice, Garson was censured by the state for treating a civil judge and his wife to a weekend vacation in the Catskills, falsely registering the judge under an assumed name, and lying about the incident to investigators.

Justice of the New York Supreme Court (1998–2003)

In 1997, Norman put Garson on the ballot for the New York Supreme Court, the highest state court below the appellate level. He won the Democratic primary, and then won the 1998 general election, and became a Justice in "Matrimonial Part 5B" in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn (the equivalent of county court) in the municipal building on Joralemon Street. In an anonymous survey of lawyers, he was described as "always well prepared" and as having "excellent settlement skills."

In 2001, he was applauded by feminists for ordering an Orthodox Jewish man to pay his wife $500 a week for life, because the man refused to grant his wife a religious divorce, or get.

In five years as a judge in Brooklyn, Garson handled 1,100 matrimony cases, making decisions on child custody and dividing families' financial assets.

Indictment

In October 2002, Frieda Hanimov, a mother in a bitter child-custody dispute being heard by Garson called a hotline at the DA's Office to complain that she had been told that her husband, Yuri Hanimov, had bribed the judge to fix the case through the lawyer Garson had appointed as law guardian for her children, divorce lawyer Paul Siminovsky. The woman had learned this when she herself contacted Nissim Elmann, who was reputedly a "fixer" who arranged bribes in divorce and custody cases. Elmann told her that she was too late, inasmuch as her ex-husband had already paid a large bribe to receive a favorable ruling.

Garson was indicted and arrested in April 2003 on charges that for years he accepted cash and other gifts from a lawyer who practiced frequently before him in divorce and custody cases as payment for preferential treatment, and for private coaching by Garson as to what questions to ask in court and what arguments to use in divorce cases the lawyer had before Garson, who would then rule in favor of the lawyer.

Garson was suspended from the bench without pay in 2003, and ultimately resigned and retired. In 2006, he received but rejected an offer to plead guilty to two minor felonies, in exchange for a 16-month sentence in a local jail. His trial was delayed as he sought treatment for cancer and underwent surgery, and while a pretrial ruling dismissing some of the charges against him was appealed by the prosecutors.

Dismissal of eight charges

In April 2004, Judge Steven W. Fisher dismissed some of the case against Garson; six felony counts of receiving rewards for official misconduct in the second degree, which were based on rules of judicial misconduct, and two misdemeanor counts of official misconduct. The judge held that breaking those rules would not be a crime, but instead an issue to be decided by administrative discipline. The Second Department of the New York Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal of the charges against Garson.

Prosecution of others charged in the scheme

Also charged with crimes linked to Garson were Siminovsky, as well as one of his clients, a court officer, a former Garson law clerk, and a "fixer". All were charged with felonies. Two long-time employees in the main court clerk's office who were not arrested were suspended without pay.

Siminovsky, who had a friendship with Garson going back to 2001, was arrested on February 25, 2003. He confessed to wrongdoing within half an hour and subsequently to bribery, and later pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor for having given unlawful gratuities, and was promised a positive letter to his sentencing judge in exchange for his cooperation in Garson's prosecution. Within hours, he was wearing a hidden body microphone in a sting operation, as he joined Garson for lunch at the Archives Restaurant on Adams Street. He continued to wear it for weeks, as part of the sting. He lost his license to practice law, agreeing never to apply for reinstatement, and testified for 13 days at two trials. He ultimately helped prosecutors win guilty pleas or convictions from nine people. In June 2007, Justice Jeffrey Berry in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn sentenced him to a year in jail, the maximum sentence for the misdemeanor.

Ezra Zifrani and his daughter Esther Weitzner pleaded guilty in February 2004 to one misdemeanor conspiracy charge for giving $5,000 to an intermediary, Nissim Elmann, to influence Garson's handling of a custody dispute between Weitzner and her ex-husband involving their five children. They did not know, however, whether the money was actually paid to Garson. In exchange for their pleas and promise to cooperate in the investigation, they were each sentenced to 210 hours of community service and three years of probation. They said that in November 2002 the intermediary "clearly implied" he was going to bribe Garson. Elmann, a Brooklyn electronics dealer and salesman, faced bribery and conspiracy charges.

In June 2004, Avraham Levi pleaded guilty to giving a "fixer" middleman $10,000 in December 2002 to get his case in front of and obtain favorable treatment from Garson. In a surveillance videotape made in February 2003, in a private meeting in his chambers Garson gave Siminovsky detailed instructions as to how to argue a divorce case before him, and assured Siminovsky that if he followed them, "The worst possible scenario is a win." On tape, Garson told Siminovsky that he would award his client in the case, Avraham Levi, the rights to a house, and Garson used an expletive to describe how the decision would affect the client's estranged wife, Sigal. Garson dictated to Siminovsky the exact language he should use in a memo to Garson, and urged him to charge his client extra for the memo. Garson granted the divorce in January 2003, but did not have an opportunity to rule on the house because he was arrested beforehand.

Louis Salerno, a 24-year-veteran court officer who had been placed on modified duty, and Paul Sarnell, Garson's former senior law clerk who had retired in 2002, were tried in a five-week trial in August 2004 with taking bribes to steer Simonivsky's cases to Garson. Prosecutors charged that Elmann would send potential divorce clients to Siminovsky, who would would then enlist Salerno or Sarnell to steer his clients' cases, which were supposed to be assigned randomly, to Garson, whom Siminovsky had spent years cultivating with meals, drinks, and cigars. Garson, prosecutors said, fed Siminovsky arguments to use in court that he would rule favorably on. Salerno and Sarnell, prosecutors said, received thousands of dollars in cash, plane tickets, and plastic bags of electronic equipment from Elmann's warehouse for their efforts. Siminovsky testified at the trial that he slipped $2,000 into the court officer's pocket as they stood at adjacent urinals in a public courthouse restroom in Brooklyn, and the court officer was also accused of accepting a DVD player and a VCR from the lawyer in front of the courthouse. After Sarnell retired in 2002, prosecutors said, Salerno took over his role. Both men were charged with receiving bribes and faced up to seven years in prison if convicted. The court officer was convicted of two felonies, bribe-receiving and receiving a reward for official misconduct.

Prosecutors said that when Siminovsky needed a case to come before Garson, Sarnell would go to an administrative clerk and tell her that Garson wanted the case reassigned to him. Sarnell's counsel maintained that anything improper Sarnell might have done was done on Garson's orders. Sarnell was acquitted of charges that he steered cases to the Garson in exchange for plane tickets to Florida and cameras, VCRs, and other electronic equipment.

In February 2005, Nissim Elmann, a Crown Heights, Brooklyn, electronics dealer portrayed by prosecutors as a "fixer", pleaded guilty to seven felonies and six misdemeanors of bribery and conspiracy for arranging bribes in divorce and child custody cases for people in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community. Elmann himself had appeared before Garson as a divorce litigant in 2000. He was accused of boasting in the Orthodox Jewish community in central Brooklyn, beginning in 2001, that for a price, he could help parties in divorce cases make sure their case was heard by a sympathetic judge. Elmann would then allegedly refer the parties to Siminovsky. He admitted to accepting thousands of dollars of cash and passing it to Siminovsky to arrange preferential treatment in cases before Garson. He was sentenced to 16 months to 5-1/2 years in prison, denied parole in 2008, and was not eligible to try again until July 2010.

Other ramifications

As a result, divorce cases were reopened, as the state’s chief administrative judge for matrimonial cases received 50 motions to reopen cases that had been handled by Garson, of which three or four were granted a hearing and eventually settled. However, even in cases that involved both Garson and Siminovsky, rulings were not necessarily reviewed or overturned. Parties were required to demonstrate some likelihood that they had not received a fair trial in order to get a hearing. Criticizing a process that requires parties who do not have subpoena powers or wiretaps to prove corruption in each case, Kathryn Lake Mazierski, president of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women, said: "The burden of proof is going to fall on them to show the case is corrupted, and how are they going to do that?"

The system of nominating judges was ruled unconstitutional. Garson's case led to a widespread political and judicial corruption inquiry in Brooklyn.

Sting cooperation

After he was confronted with evidence that included surveillance videotapes from a video camera that the DA's Office had installed in his chambers pursuant to a warrant in 2003, Garson agreed to wear a wire to secretly tape conversations with Democratic Party leaders to gather evidence that a seat on the bench could be purchased with cash payments to Norman and the county Democratic Party. But he was not successful in his effort to tape Democratic Party officials discussing buying and selling judgeships.

Clarence Norman Jr., a long-time Kings County Democratic Party leader who helped place Garson on the bench, was however convicted and sent to prison on corruption charges of extortion, soliciting illegal contributions from a lobbyist, and stealing $5,000 from his re-election committee. Garson was not successful in his effort to tape Democratic Party officials discussing buying and selling judgeships.

Trial and conviction (2007)

The audience for Garson's four-week trial, as The New York Times observed, "included a good number of displeased divorcées." The trial took place in State Supreme Court, on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn district attorney Charles J. Hynes' chief of investigations, Michael Vecchione, prosecuted Garson. The prosecution alleged that Garson had an agreement with a divorce lawyer for Garson to take cash, dinners, and cigars in exchange for courtroom assignments and favored treatment.

Prosecutors provided as evidence financial records. They also provided video surveillance recordings from March 2003 showing Siminovsky handing Garson an envelope containing $1,000 cash in the judge's robing room, as well as a $250 box of 25 Dominican cigars—both of which had been supplied to Siminovsky by the DA's office as part of the sting operation. Garson initially refused to accept the money and then tried to return the cash, and suggested that Siminovsky contribute it to his wife's judicial campaign instead, but Siminovsky said he would make the contribution as well, but told the judge to keep the cash. Sighing, Garson put the money in a drawer. At one point in the tapes, Garson assured Siminovsky, saying: "You know what? Justice is being done."

Garson told Siminovsky: "Just have deny a few things, like, ‘Did she give you money every day to deposit?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did she go to the bank every day? She said she went to the bank every day. Is that true?’ ‘No.’ ‘Did you ever, ever take any cash?’ ‘Absolutely not.’ ”

Siminovsky asked Garson if he would award the couple’s home to his client, to which Garson responded: "I’ll award him exclusive use on it". Garson coached Siminovsky as to how to examine a witness regarding the amount of money the wife made from a school she operated, saying: "You’ll put him on the stand. You go through, ‘In evidence is a record book kept by ba ba boom, there’s an average of so many students per month. The book indicates the approximate rate of $350–400 a month per student....’"

In addition, they provided testimony from Siminovsky. Siminovsky, disbarred as a lawyer, testified that he entertained the judge with lunches, dinners, and drinks, nearly always paying the bill, and gave him money and cigars, in exchange for favorable treatment and legal assignments. The prosecution alleged that before Siminovsky began cooperating with prosecutors, he had already entertained Garson more than 40 times, spending $3,149.

Garson was convicted in April 2007 of accepting bribes to manipulate the outcome of divorce proceedings (bribery in the third degree, a Class D felony), and of two lesser charges of receiving a reward for official misconduct in the second degree (a class E felony). The jury acquitted him on four other counts of receiving a reward for official misconduct in the second degree. Additionally, Garson was disbarred as a result of his felony convictions.

Following Garson's conviction, his lawyers pleaded for leniency on the basis of his reported alcoholism, bladder cancer, and other medical conditions.

Prison and release (2007-09)

On June 5, 2007, Acting Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey G. Berry, a visiting judge from Orange County, New York, imposed three consecutive sentences on Garson that cumulatively were between 3 and 10 years in prison. Garson cried in court, and said he was "profoundly sorry" for his actions. His lawyers tried to delay his sentence on account of his granddaughter's death and the care of his mentally retarded grown son. His lawyer also said he would appeal. He entered an alcohol detoxification program for six days, after which he surrendered at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn to begin serving his sentence on June 28, 2007.

Until May 2009, he was isolated in protective custody at the Mid-State Correctional Facility in Marcy, New York. From May 2009 on, he was in the general population at the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick, New York, 60 miles north of New York City.

Garson was granted an early release from prison, obtaining parole six months before the term of his minimum sentence had run. He was granted parole in his first appearance before the New York State Parole Board, over the DA's Office's strong opposition, and released from a Harlem halfway house on December 23, 2009. He received early parole due to his completion of a substance abuse program, and good behavior. Conditions of his release included that through June 2017 he abide by curfews set by his probation officer, not associate with any law firms, not drink alcohol, and at the discretion of his parole officer attend an alcohol abuse treatment program and submit to substance abuse testing. A spokesperson for the Parole Board said it was relatively rare for nonviolent felons to receive parole the first time they appeared before the board, as only 21% did in 2008. If he had been denied parole, he would have had to wait an additional two years before he could re-apply.

Garson had appealed his conviction, but the appeal was denied on January 5, 2010, by the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department.

Family

Garson has four children, and a number of grandchildren.

His second wife, Robin Garson, a Brooklyn Law School graduate, handled cases involving the elderly, was a volunteer election lawyer for the Democratic Party helping eliminate opponents from the ballot, and was on several county bar committees. In 2002 she was put up by the Democratic Party for Brooklyn Civil Court, a level below New York Supreme Court, and was elected a judge on the court.

References

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39. "NY Judge Guilty in Bribes Case". washingtonpost.com. Retrieved July 23, 2010.
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41. ^ Daniel Wise (August 20, 2009). "Early Parole Given to Former N.Y. Justice Convicted of Bribery". Law.com. Retrieved July 23, 2010.
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External links

• "'Bribery' Judge's Lawyer Calls it Quits", The New York Post,, November 17, 2006, by Alex Ginsberg
• "Brooklyn Dems Celebrate as Scandal Mounts For Judges, It's One-Stop Shopping", Gotham Gazette, May 7–13, 2003, by Tom Robbins

• 1932 births
• Living people
• University of Pennsylvania Law School alumni
• New York Supreme Court Justices
• New York lawyers
• Corruption in the United States
• People convicted of bribery
• Divorce law