Thomas J. Maloney

Thomas J. Maloney (1925–2008) was a judge in Cook County, Illinois who served from 1977 until his indictment for bribery in 1991. Since 1981, the court was being investigated by the FBI in Operation Greylord, and he was eventually convicted on four counts of accepting bribes (including fixing three murder cases). He served 12 years of a 15-year prison term from 1994 to 2007.

The web magazine Judiciary Report said that Maloney "easily qualifies as one of the worst judges in history".

Career Thomas Maloney had been a boxer in his youth, who subsequently acquitted Harry Aleman of murder.

In 1977, Maloney was named a judge by the Illinois Supreme Court, and shortly thereafter he came to be known to attorneys such as Robert Cooley and William Swano and in criminal circles as a judge who could be bought. Generally, the negotiations were arranged and bribes paid through the use of a "bagman," or intermediary. For some years, bailiff Lucius Robinson acted as his bagman, but when the FBI investigations turned up the heat, co-lawyer and friend Robert McGee acted as bagman.

However, Maloney's public image was that of a tough judge, known for imposing tough sentences and castigating gang members as "the lowest sorts of cowards". In his courtroom, he sat under a framed portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. For a time, he was one of six so-called "heater" judges who were assigned high-profile cases.

In 1988, the FBI pressed charges based on Operation Greylord and the associated Operation Gambat, and a grand jury proceedings were initiated. Erstwhile bagman Robinson testified, under a grant of immunity. At the time, Maloney was continuing to practice.

In June 1991, Maloney was indicted, causing considerable surprise in Cook County. In the ensuing trial, he claimed in his defense that Swano and Robinson had operated a scam known as "rainmaking," where the participants never pass the bribe along to the judge. However, Maloney's financial records indicated that he had purchased "hundreds of money orders with cash from unknown sources", Moy agreed to pay $100,000, a portion of which Marcy gave to Maloney for the fix. At trial, Judge Maloney found a dying declaration by Chin as unreliable, thus acquitting the defendants. Subsequently, Cooley became an informant, and tape recordings of a conversation with Pat Marcy constituted a key piece of testimony.

Altogether, seventeen judges were sentenced in the investigations into Operation Greylord. However, as the Chicago Tribune put it in his obituary, Maloney was "the first — and remains the only — Cook County judge to be convicted of rigging murder cases for cash". Mental Floss describes it as "the worst of the worst was the not-so-honorable Thomas J. Maloney".

Other cases involving judges accepting cash in murder cases include James McGettrick of the Cleveland, Ohio area Cuyahoga County Court.

Bracy v. Gramley, 520 U.S. 889 (1997) In 1981, the gangster William J. Bracy was convicted of triple murder and sentenced to death by Maloney. After Maloney's conviction, he demanded that his judgment be investigated for possibly being influenced by bribery. The Supreme Court in 1997 held that a sufficient factual case had been made for discovery of facts in the matter under habeas corpus law.

Robert Gacho v. Anthony Wills (2021) In 1982, Robert Gacho and co-defendant Dino Titone were convicted of kidnapping and murders of two men. In 2021, the 7th Circuit Court granted Gacho a new trial after it was revealed Judge Maloney took a $10,000 bribe from Titone for an acquittal. Gacho refused to pay the bribe to the Judge and the Judge engaged in compensatory or sexual favors camouflaging bias against Gacho. (The judge had a reputation for treating defendants harshly if they did not pay him).