Gerald Garson

Gerald Phillip Garson (August 3, 1932 — February 6, 2016) was an American lawyer and 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 outcomes of divorce proceedings. Garson was imprisoned from June 2007 until December 2009. After the fixer received a payment, he would refer the person to a lawyer contact of his, who had given Garson drinks, meals, cigars, and cash—accepting (and receiving) preferential treatment in return. The fixer and the lawyer, Paul Siminovsky (a lawyer for children appointed by Garson), would then bribe court employees to override the court's computer system, which was programmed to ensure that cases were assigned to judges randomly. Instead, they would have the case assigned to Garson. Garson, in turn, would then privately coach the lawyer. He would tell him questions the lawyer should ask of witnesses in the case before Garson, and arguments that the lawyer should make to Garson in court.

Garson was indicted in 2003, on the basis of video surveillance of his judicial chambers, and recordings made on a body wire worn by his "favored" lawyer. At his four-week trial in 2007, he was acquitted on four counts, but found guilty on one count of accepting bribes, and on two lesser charges of receiving rewards for official misconduct.

Early career Garson graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1957. He was a U.S. Air Force veteran. The politically connected law firm is now known as Gerber & Gerber. In the 1970s and 1980s, Garson and his law firm had a lucrative practice representing owners of taxi fleets, defending taxi drivers and owners in negligence suits.

In 1984, Garson was censured by the state Appellate Division for "conferring gifts, gratuities and benefits", by giving an improper gift to a judge with whom he had a "long-standing social relationship". In 1972, Garson treated Judge Vaccaro and his wife to a weekend vacation at Kutsher's County Club in the Catskills, and falsely registered the judge under an assumed name; later, he lied about the incident to investigators. Vaccaro, by then a New York State Supreme Court Justice, was suspended without pay for six months.

Justice of the NY Supreme Court (1998–2003) In 1997, Garson was placed on the ballot to be a Democratic Party nominee for the position of Justice of the New York Supreme Court, the highest state court below the appellate level, and the equivalent of county court.

Garson also received good ratings for his legal knowledge, administration of his courtroom, and handling of trials and settlements. In 2001, he was applauded by feminists for ordering an Orthodox Jewish man to pay his ex-wife $500-a-week for life, because the man refused to grant her a religious divorce, or get.

Indictment, arrest, and related events (2003–07)

Sting operation, indictment, and arrest In October 2002, Frieda Hanimov, an Israeli émigré nurse, called a hotline at the District Attorney's (DA's) Office. The mother of three, was at the time embroiled in a bitter child-custody dispute that was being heard by Judge Garson. She complained that she had been told that her husband, Yuri Hanimov, had bribed the judge to fix their case, and that he had done so through Nissim Elmann (reputedly a "fixer", who arranged bribes in divorce and custody cases) and Paul Siminovsky (the divorce lawyer whom Garson had appointed as law guardian for her children). The woman had learned this when she herself met with Elmann, seeking to bribe Garson. Elmann told her that she was too late, inasmuch as her husband had already paid a large bribe to receive a favorable ruling. This violated the rules of judicial conduct, which prohibit a judge from speaking privately with an attorney who has a case pending, without the presence or permission of the opposing attorney.

Garson was suspended from the bench without pay on May 22, 2003, by the Court of Appeals of New York. He 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.

Lawyer Siminovsky, a lawyer who appeared before Garson in divorce cases, was arrested on February 25, 2003. He had a friendship with Garson going back to 2001 and spent an extraordinary amount of time with him outside of court, taking him out and paying for lunches, dinners, and drinks. In a November 18, 2002, in a recorded telephone conversation, he told Elmann (the "fixer") that he had just spent two hours getting Garson drunk, and that "e'll do what we want."

On the morning he was arrested, Siminovsky was taken to the Fort Hamilton army base in Bay Ridge for questioning. He confessed within half an hour, and subsequently confessed to bribery. He made a deal with the investigators, agreeing to cooperate in the investigation of Garson in exchange for a reduced charge (a plea bargain), and the promise of a positive letter from the DA to Siminovsky's sentencing judge. 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 the wire for weeks in meetings with Garson. They said that Elman "clearly implied" he was going to bribe Garson. In exchange for their pleas and their cooperation in the investigation, in August 2007 they were each sentenced to 210 hours of community service and three years of probation.

Avraham Levi pleaded guilty in June 2004 to having given the "fixer" $10,000 in December 2002, to get his case in front of and obtain favorable treatment from Garson (a Class E felony). There was no evidence that the money ever made its way to Garson. Subsequent to the husband's payment to the fixer, Garson awarded him exclusive custody of the couple's two oldest sons. Garson did not have an opportunity to rule on the couple's house, because he was arrested beforehand.

Court officer and court clerk Louis Salerno (a 24-year-veteran court officer, who had been placed on modified duty) and Paul Sarnell (Garson's former senior court clerk, who had retired in 2002) were tried for allegedly accepting bribes to steer Simonivsky's cases to Garson. Their five-week trial ended in August 2004.

Prosecutors charged that Elmann would send potential clients to Siminovsky, who would then in turn enlist Salerno or Sarnell to steer his clients' divorce cases (which were supposed to be assigned randomly) to Garson. The court officer was also videotaped accepting a DVD player and VCRs from the lawyer in front of the Joralemon Street courthouse on March 27, 2003. Salerno was convicted of two felonies, bribe-receiving and receiving a reward for official misconduct, and sentenced in August 2007 to 1–4½ years in prison.

"Fixer" In February 2005, Nissim Elmann, portrayed by prosecutors as a "fixer", pleaded guilty to seven felonies and six misdemeanors. He had been charged with bribery and conspiracy, for accepting bribes in divorce and child custody cases that he steered to Garson. Though Elmann had asserted to his potential clients that he had direct contact with Garson (telling one mother, for example: "He will do everything for me. The problem is how much [will] you sacrifice?"), evidence later showed that he only had contact with Siminovsky, and he later admitted he did not know the judge.

Elmann was sentenced in August 2007 to 16 months−5½ years in prison, with Justice Berry saying "Justice is not for sale."

Other ramifications

Fifty motions to reopen divorce cases that had been handled by Garson were received by New York's chief administrative judge for matrimonial cases. Of those, three or four were granted a hearing, and eventually settled.

The TV show Law and Order aired an episode entitled "Floater" on November 12, 2003, relating to a corruption scandal in Brooklyn Supreme Court in which a judge accepted bribes in return for giving litigants preferential treatment. The episode was "ripped from the headlines" of the Garson matter. In addition, Frieda Hanimov was compared to whistle-blower Erin Brockovich, and Warner Brothers purchased the rights to a movie entitled The Frieda Hanimov Story.

Democratic Party sting cooperation

When Garson was arrested, he was confronted with surveillance videotapes from a video camera that the DA's Office had installed in his robing room chambers' ceiling pursuant to a December 9, 2002, warrant. After seeing the videotapes, he agreed to wear a wire to secretly tape conversations with Democratic Party leaders. His goal was to gather evidence that a seat on the bench could be purchased by paying cash to the county Democratic Party and to Norman, the Democratic Party leader who had helped place Garson on the bench. But he was unsuccessful 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 "included a good number of displeased divorcées", observed The New York Times.

Garson also coached Siminovsky as to how to examine a witness regarding the amount of money the wife had earned from a school she operated. He said:

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 ... '

Romeo y Julieta cigar. Siminovsky gave Garson a box of the Dominican cigars. Another recording showed Siminovsky (at this point, part of a sting operation targeting Garson) giving the judge a $250 box of 25 "Romeo y Julieta" Dominican cigars on March 3, 2010. The cigars were supplied to Siminovsky by the DA's Office. Garson initially refused to accept the money. He then tried to return it, suggesting that Siminovsky contribute it to Garson's wife's judicial campaign instead. But Siminovsky threw the money back on the judge's desk, saying he would make a campaign contribution as well, but telling the judge to keep the cash. Garson picked up the money, and tried to hand it to Siminovsky once again, saying "I appreciate it. No, no, no ... No." But then, sighing, he put the money in his desk drawer.

Garson was also convicted of two lesser charges, relating to his accepting a box of cigars and $1,000 in cash from Siminovsky for having referred two clients. The charges were for receiving a reward for official misconduct in the second degree (a class E felony; the lowest under New York law, in violation of New York Penal Law § 200.25). The jury acquitted him on four other counts of receiving rewards for official misconduct in the second degree. Additionally, Garson was automatically disbarred as an attorney as a result of his felony convictions. Garson cried in court, and said he was "profoundly sorry" for his actions. His lawyers pleaded for leniency on the basis of his reported alcoholism, bladder cancer, and other medical conditions. Berry rejected Garson's pleas for leniency, saying:

You should have been beyond reproach. The people of Brooklyn deserve more from you. You are not some bum. You're an intelligent man. You went to Penn, and Penn Law School.

His lawyer tried to delay his sentence on account of Garson's granddaughter's death, and so he could care for his mentally disabled grown son. He was released early as a result of his completion of a substance abuse program, and good behavior. It opined that the evidence of his guilt was "overwhelming". In 2002, having been nominated by the Democratic Party for a judgeship on the Brooklyn Civil Court (a level below New York Supreme Court), she won her election and became a judge on the court, and was reelected in 2012. In 2011, she was appointed by NY's Chief Administrative Judge to serve as an Acting Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of NY.

Garson and his wife were married for more than two decades. Garson had four children, and a number of grandchildren.