Judge Targeted In Payoff Probe Surrenders

A politically connected State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn surrendered late Wednesday to face charges of accepting illegal gratuities and other misconduct, according to legal sources.

Matrimonial judge Gerald P. Garson, 72, has been under investigation for a year for allegedly accepting the favors from lawyers appearing before him.

Prosecutors in the office of District Attorney Charles Hynes secretly videotaped conversations Garson had with an attorney in the judge's robing room, sources said, part of a wider investigation into suspected wrongdoing by matrimonial court officials and attorneys.

As of late Wednesday night, a court officer, a court clerk and a lawyer also had surrendered to face charges in the case, a law enforcement source said. The court officer is suspected of steering cases to a judge. More arrests were expected.

Investigators are looking at charges that Garson accepted free meals from attorneys appearing before him and up to $1,000 for giving an attorney a court appointment, the sources said. The charges could include felonies and misdemeanors, they said.

The probe is another traumatic development for the borough's judiciary, which last year saw the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Victor Barron, convicted on charges he took a bribe from a lawyer to sign an order in an accident settlement. Barron was sentenced to 9 years in prison.

"Morale is not good in Brooklyn," one court source said.

Brooklyn Administrative Judge Ann Pfau was scheduled to hold a meeting Thursday morning with all of the judges in the borough to bring them up to speed on the investigation.

"I cannot confirm nor deny an investigation," said Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for Hynes.

Sources said Wednesday night that Garson, who lives on Manhattan's Upper East Side, will be facing charges of accepting a reward for official misconduct, a felony, and accepting an illegal gratuity, a misdemeanor.

Garson, elected to the bench in 1998, did not return calls to his home and office or answer an e-mail message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon. Because he is over 70, he is a "certificated" judge, meaning he has to be approved for continued service up to the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Garson, a Democrat who has been allied with former Borough President Howard Golden, is one of three members of his family on the bench in Brooklyn. His wife, Robin, was elected to a Civil Court seat, and and his cousin Michael J. Garson was elected to the Supreme Court. Neither is accused of wrongdoing.

Gerald Garson, as a private attorney in the 1970s, was accused of giving an improper gift -- a weekend stay at a resort -- to a state court judge and his wife. In that case, Justice Frank Vaccaro, who had sat in Civil Court and then State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, was suspended without pay for six months after he was found to have checked into Kutsher's Country Club in 1972 under a false name to conceal his presence as a guest of Garson's firm.

Garson was censured by the state Appellate Division in 1984 for "conferring gifts, gratuities and benefits" on a civil court judge and his wife, according to court records. The censure order noted that Garson and the judge had a "long-standing social relationship" and that there was no evidence the gift was an attempt to influence the judge.