A Brooklyn jurist was busted for accepting money and vacations, including an exotic jaunt to Bali, in exchange for fixing divorce cases – and has since been wearing a wire for investigators probing corruption and the sale of judgeships, The Post has learned.
As early as today, up to eight courthouse figures are expected to be rounded house figures are expected to be rounded up to face charges along with Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Gerald Garson as a result of a complicated eight-month probe into kickbacks and payoffs conducted by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, sources said.
The investigation has tried to pierce the smoky back rooms of the Brooklyn political clubs where it has long been alleged deals for judgeships are “arranged,” the sources said.
“We have uncovered a cancerous cell in the civil courts,” a law-enforcement official confirmed.
Sources said the undercover investigation was launched last fall when a unidentified woman who was involved in a messy divorce case telephoned the DA’s complaint hot line.
She alleged that her case was fixed with Garson, who was taking bribes from her husband’s lawyer, Paul Siminovsky, sources said.
The DA initially launched an undercover investigation of Siminovsky, 43, who specializes in matrimonial and child-support cases.
The detectives quickly uncovered evidence that Siminovsky was fixing cases for a number of clients, including a rabbi who tried to sway his daughter’s case.
“He had a reputation in his community that if you wanted your case to work out, you had to go to him,” one source explained.
Some clients were steered to Siminovsky by a shady Israeli businessman who combed the courthouse corridors asking people if they needed help with their cases, sources said.
A court officer would then shift their cases to Garson’s court.
The DA’s office obtained court authorization from Ann Pfau, the chief administrative judge of Brooklyn and Staten Island – who’s been assigned to weed out corruption in the courts – to eavesdrop on Siminovsky’s phones and to secretly record his actions.
Within weeks, they confronted Siminovsky with his wrongdoing, and he agreed to cooperate with investigators and gather evidence against Garson – whose wife, Robin, and cousin, Michael, are also on the bench.
Investigators bugged Garson’s courthouse chambers and installed a video camera and began listening to his phones.
In what sources described as extraordinary film footage, they captured the judge receiving money and gifts, including airplane tickets and free vacations to exotic locales such as Bali, in exchange for issuing favorable rulings for Siminovsky.
“It is like Abscam,” another source said, referring to secretly recorded FBI tapes that caught corrupt congressmen and senators taking bribes from agents posing as Arab oilmen.
When the probers confronted Garson, he arrogantly brushed them aside, claiming they had no evidence against him, sources said.
But when they described several of the highlights caught on tape, Garson revealed that judgeships were bought and sold in Brooklyn for upwards of $50,000 and said he could expose it.
He volunteered to wear a recording device to try to capture the political bigwigs he claimed were allegedly brokering those deals.
Sources say Garson began meeting with various politically connected figures in Brooklyn about a month ago.
It was unclear whether those meetings recorded any incriminating evidence against members of the borough’s political parties.
But the scandal has prompted the DA to investigate all divorce and child-support cases handled by Garson.
Although Garson is 72 and at mandatory retirement age, he remains on the bench after receiving a “certificate” to remain through his term, which extends for two more years. Hynes spokesman, Jerry Schmetterer, declined to comment on the case.
Garson is the second crooked judge to be snared by Hynes’ office in the past year.
Disgraced Criminal Court Judge Victor Barron was caught soliciting a $115,000 bribe from an attorney who was handling a multimillion-dollar negligence case before Barron.
The attorney wore a recording device for Hynes, and caught Barron accepting an $18,000 initial payout.
Barron pleaded guilty in August, and was sentenced to serve up to nine years in jail. He is currently imprisoned at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate Dannemora.