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Arrest of NYC Judge Is Expected

By TOM PERROTTA
April 24, 2003 - NEW YORK LAWYER

A Brooklyn Supreme Court justice is expected to be arrested and arraigned as early as today on charges that he accepted money and gifts in exchange for favorable rulings in matrimonial disputes, court sources said yesterday.

The imminent indictment of Justice Gerald P. Garson, 70, is tied to an eight-month investigation by the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes, one source said.

Justice Garson, a Democrat who was elected to the bench in 1997, would become the second sitting Brooklyn judge in a year to be accused of criminal acts. Last summer, Justice Victor I. Barron pleaded guilty to demanding a bribe in excess of $100,000 and was sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison, the longest prison sentence ever for an active New York judge.

The investigation into Justice Garson, inspired by a tip from an unidentified citizen in a matrimonial case, uncovered a scheme to steer cases to the judge for payoffs, the source said.

"If you had the right lawyer, you could get [Justice Garson]," the source said. "They stunk up the courthouse."

The extent of the alleged scheme and the amount of money it entailed was unclear yesterday, though the source said "it seems that was the way business was done in that courtroom."

Sources said as many as seven others, including an unidentified attorney and several court clerks, would likely be arrested in connection with scheme.

Justice Garson will not be charged with bribery, but with "receiving an award for official misconduct," a Class E felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison, sources said.

"I don't think they have an actual bribery case," one source said.

The indictment could lead to the investigation of a large number of Justice Garson's past matrimonial cases for possible misconduct, the source said.

The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office declined to comment. A call to Justice Garson's courtroom went unanswered, and he could not otherwise be reached for comment.

David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration (OCA), said Justice Garson, who is certificated, had been away from court for the last month, taking two weeks of vacation and another two weeks of sick leave.

"By and large his cases have been adjourned," Bookstaver said. He declined to comment further.

Before Justice Garson began serving as a judge in January 1998, he was a partner in Gerber & Garson, a politically connected law firm on Court Street in Brooklyn now known as Gerber & Gerber. The firm developed expertise in handling cases for the city's taxi and limousine industry.

Justice Garson's wife, Robin S. Garson, 49, won a seat as a Civil Court judge last November and began serving in January. His cousin, Michael J. Garson, 53, is also a Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn, sitting in Civil Supreme Court. Sources said yesterday that neither Justice Garson's wife nor his cousin were believed to be involved in the judge's alleged misconduct.

Brooklyn Bench

In the last three years, the Brooklyn judiciary has been beset by various scandals and has drawn stinging criticism from numerous newspaper editorials.

In late 2000, OCA appointed a special inspector general to investigate favoritism by judges who appointed fiduciaries for incompetent or incapacitated persons, leading to recently enacted training requirements for appointees and limits on appointments for former judges and high-level court officials.

A month before Justice Barron pleaded guilty to bribery charges last summer, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Reynold N. Mason was removed from the bench by the Commission on Judicial Conduct for ethical breaches. In January 2002, one judge was admonished and another, Justice Richard D. Huttner, was censured for using the prestige and influence of his office in litigation involving the co-op board of his apartment building.

OCA responded to some of those events in February 2002, when it named Ann T. Pfau, a statewide deputy administrative judge, administrative judge for the Brooklyn Supreme Court.

The last time a matrimonial court in New York became tainted by scandal was in 1999, when Steven Singer, then chief clerk for uncontested matrimonial cases in Manhattan Supreme Court, was indicted for taking bribes.

Singer eventually pleaded guilty to accepting bribes over seven years in exchange for speeding cases along and other favors. Two attorneys were also indicted in the scheme but they were not punished, despite Singer's role as a witness against them.

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