The former judge at the heart of a four-year federal investigation of judicial corruption told jurors on Thursday that he accepted kickbacks from several attorney friends, including the South Texas lawyer on trial.Former state District Judge Abel Limas took the stand in Brownsville as a prosecution witness against Port Isabel lawyer Ray Marchan, the first of a dozen indicted in the case to go to trial.
Limas, the government's featured witness, pleaded guilty last year to racketeering and is awaiting sentencing. Marchan faces seven counts, including racketeering and conspiracy.
The trial's details may affirm the public's worst fears about justice behind closed doors, where scales tipped in favor of money exchanges between lawyers and judges not evidence and procedure.
The intercepted conversations between Limas and Marchan played for the jury were profane, cynical chats between buddies about using the system to line their pockets. The amounts weren't huge - about $11,000 from Marchan - but Limas testified that Marchan wasn't the only one giving him money, and that, in total, he had taken more than $250,000 in bribes and kickbacks.
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Ex-Judge Testifies in Lawyer's Corruption Trial
5 comments:
I'd like to start every day with stories like this!
Kickbacks? Well there you have it. We know it goes on, but haven't seen many step up to the plate and own it.
We know it happens. In many cases, there is no other explanation for the judge's ruling.
Texas - one of the hotspots of judicial corruption!
Yes, we all know this has been going on for years....why else are the judges making so many bad rulings? I have no doubt at all and I am sure that it is going on all over the country. We will be seeing more and more stories like this as people begin to lose their fear and start to speak up.
After all of the letters amd documentation I sent to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct detailing the behavior of Judge Joel Asarch and Mom's guardian attorney Mary Giordano, one would think that they would have done the right thing and investigated all of the wrongdoing. The truth always rises to the top...they can only bury it for so long. It is up to each of us individually to expose this corruption.
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