Witness Against Judge Wants Freedom

Vera Hoff, a key witness in the racketeering case against federal Judge Robert P. Aguilar, is embroiled in a dispute with prosecutors over what she claims is their failure to help her get out of prison as they promised.

In court documents obtained Thursday, Hoff, 65, claimed her cooperation has “gone completely unrewarded,” and she hinted that she is cooling to the idea of testifying against Aguilar, a friend who in the past was her employer and her attorney.

Although she did not say she would refuse to testify, Hoff said in the documents that the “agony” she expects to encounter by testifying against Aguilar “should give the government incentive not to turn a friendly witness into a hostile one.”

Hoff was arrested in March as authorities investigated the San Jose judge, who in June became the fourth federal judge to be indicted in the 1980s. Hoff had fled the country in 1980 after her conviction for tax evasion.

She is expected to provide pivotal testimony to support allegations in the indictment that Aguilar advised her while she was living in Mexico between 1980 and 1983, and “impeded the U.S. marshal’s office in its search for her.”

Court documents indicated that, under the plea bargain she struck with the Justice Department, Hoff hoped to be released from prison no later than March, 1990.

But a federal parole commission surprised her in October by ruling that she must remain in custody until September, 1990, for the tax evasion conviction.

Randy Sue Pollock, Hoff’s attorney, urged parole officials to free Hoff, noting the judge who sentenced Hoff to prison for tax evasion decreed in 1980 that she spend no more than a year in prison. She will have spent a total of 18 months in custody if she must stay in prison until September.

“Her only concern is to be released from prison and reunited with her dogs, who provide the only meaning and love in her life,” Pollock wrote.

Pollock also wrote that Hoff “fully intends to cooperate” in the case against Aguilar.

However, in a motion she wrote, Hoff asked Senior U.S. District Judge David W. Williams to cut her sentence, claiming that “the plea bargain induced by the government proved illusory.”

“Defendant did not receive the leniency she believed she would receive,” Hoff wrote.

Ralph D. Martin, the Justice Department lawyer who is prosecuting Aguilar, could not be reached. But in court papers, he said he lived up to the bargain when he appeared before parole authorities to let them know of Hoff’s cooperation.

“Assuming that cooperation is forthcoming as expected,” Martin told the judge, “ . . . the government may at a future date consider moving for modification of defendant’s probation. . . . Such action is, however, premature at this time.”

Aguilar is scheduled to go on trial in February. In addition to facing charges of racketeering and helping Hoff, the judge is charged with using his position to try to influence two other federal judges who were presiding over criminal cases involving his friends.