60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl reports for
48 Hours Mystery in "Chamber of Secrets," Saturday,
Feb. 19, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
'Frieda Hanimov was a woman in desperate fear of losing
custody of her kids because she believed the judge ruling
on her case was corrupt. Panicked and pregnant, she told
authorities of her suspicions and agreed to go undercover.
Wearing a wire, she went alone into a warehouse to try
to prove that New York State Supreme Court
Judge Gerald Garson was corrupt.
Hanimov's undercover work, recorded on audiotape, has
the man she met at the warehouse bragging that he had
Judge Garson in his pocket and that if Hanimov gave the
man at the warehouse a large sum of money that he
would guarantee that she would get custody of her
young children.
This taped conversation was enough evidence to have
the Brooklyn district attorney grant permission to place
a hidden camera in Judge Garson's chambers. Prosecutors
catch Judge Garson on videotape, they say, taking a gift
for legal advice, giving a lawyer advice on how to
write a legal memo on a case before him and accepting
a $1,000 referral fee.
Judge Garson's lawyer, Ronald Fischetti, explains to
Stahl that the judge's behavior may look bad, but there's
nothing illegal about it.
"He never fixed a case. He never accepted any money
on any cases whatsoever," says Fischetti. "The $1,000
was a referral fee that Paul Siminovsky [a lawyer in
Garson's court] said, 'You referred me a case. I
received a fee and here's the $1,000.'"
"Are judges supposed to take referral fees," asks Stahl.
"Absolutely not, and he tried to give it back three times,"
says Fischetti.
"He ended up taking it," says Stahl.
"You've heard of the law of entrapment, I'm sure,"
says Fischetti.
Judge Garson goes on trial this fall, and the alleged
gatekeeper to Garson's court, Nissim Elmann, faces trial
next week.
Judge Garson has been charged with bribe receiving in
connection with free meals he accepted from a lawyer
who appeared before him, and Elmann is accused of
conspiring to bribe the judge and the judge's staff.
Hanimov's case has been a catalyst for a major reform
in divorce court and she is being hailed as the new
Erin Brockovich. In fact, Judge Garson's arrest led a
new commission to reform divorce court, with none
other than TV's Judge Judy as one of its major supporters.
Judge Judy Sheindlin, who was a family court judge in
Brooklyn for 25 years, tells Stahl: "I don't know all
the facts. I only know what I read in the paper, but
certainly here is a man [Garson] who has brought the
judiciary into disrepute because of, at least,
his stupidity." '
Source:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/18/48hours/main674950.shtmlChamber Of Secrets -- Feb. 18, 2005
"Children learn what they live"