Since 1981, the court was being investigated by the FBI in Operation Greylord,[1] and he was eventually convicted[2] on four counts of accepting bribes (including fixing three murder cases).
[3] The web magazine Judiciary Report has said of Maloney that he "easily qualifies as one of the worst judges in history".
[5] An example of alleged toughness was a unanimous Illinois Supreme Court ruling June 9, 1997, permitting death row prisoner William Bracy a chance to pursue evidence that Maloney was unfairly harsh when sentencing Bracy, to deflect suspicion of taking bribes to let off other defendants.
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, 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".
[16] 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.
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.