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.

[8] In the bribery scheme, a "fixer" told people divorcing in Brooklyn that for a price he could steer their case to a sympathetic judge.

[12][13] 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.

[14] The New York Times, commenting on Garson's conviction, observed: "It was news that confirmed every sneaking suspicion, every paranoid fantasy of anyone who had ever felt wronged in a divorce court.

[3][7][22] Garson and members of his firm regularly appeared before then-New York Civil Court Judge Frank Vaccaro.

[3][30] In October 2002, Frieda Hanimov, an Israeli émigré nurse, called a hotline at the District Attorney's (DA's) Office.

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).

[38][43] 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 "[h]e'll do what we want.

[5][6][11][45][46][47] 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.

They admitted having given $5,000 to Elmann (the "fixer"), to influence Garson's handling of a custody dispute between Weitzner and her ex-husband involving their five children.

[50] Supreme Court Justice Michael Ambrosio ruled in August 2004 that Weizner was an unfit parent for her children, because she paid the bribe.

[52] 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).

[11][54] Subsequent to the husband's payment to the fixer, Garson awarded him exclusive custody of the couple's two oldest sons.

[54] For his role in the corruption scandal, Justice Berry sentenced Levi to three months in jail, 150 hours of community service, and five years' probation following his release.

[58] According to the prosecutors, the defendants received thousands of dollars in cash, plane tickets, and plastic bags of electronic equipment from Elmann's warehouse for their efforts.

[9][39][60] 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.

[9][39][61] 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.

He had been charged with bribery and conspiracy, for accepting bribes in divorce and child custody cases that he steered to Garson.

[6][66] 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.

[68][69][70] 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.

[6][72] The audience for Garson's four-week trial "included a good number of displeased divorcées", observed The New York Times.

'[43][75]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.

Garson had found that the other side had lied about finances and operation of a daycare center and who had actually paid for the house the family lived in.

[80] 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.

[87]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.

[6][17][86] He entered an alcohol detoxification program for six days, after which on June 28, 2007, he surrendered at State Supreme Court in Brooklyn to begin serving his sentence.

[8] Garson was granted an early release from prison, obtaining parole six months before the term of his minimum sentence had run.

But his appeal was denied on January 5, 2010, by the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department.

A Brooklyn Law School graduate, and an election lawyer for the Kings County Democratic Committee (helping eliminate party opponents from the ballot and was a member of the legal team representing DA Hynes in 2001.)