Aguilar Cleared on 1 Count; Jury Hung on Others

A federal jury Monday acquitted U.S. District Judge Robert P. Aguilar of one of eight corruption counts and announced it was deadlocked on the remaining seven.

Federal prosecutors, though stung by the defeat, vowed to refile charges against Aguilar, the first federal judge ever indicted in California and the first ever in the nation charged with racketeering.

U.S. District Judge Louis Bechtle declared a mistrial on the seven deadlocked charges and set June 4 as the date for a second trial on those charges.

Prosecutor William Keefer of the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section said he plans to again press the government’s case against Aguilar. “If we have to do it again, we’ll do it again,” Keefer said.

Aguilar was acquitted of trying to influence fellow U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti at a time when Conti was hearing a case involving Aguilar’s longtime friend Ronald V. Cloud. Cloud was convicted of bank fraud in 1986.

In comments after their verdict was announced, two of the jurors said they and most of their colleagues also leaned heavily toward acquitting Aguilar of the racketeering charge, as well as on all but one of the other counts. But a few holdouts among them prevented the majority from clearing the judge completely, these jurors said.

“At the extreme,” jury foreman Carl D’Amico said, “some of the things (Aguilar) did could be looked at as bad judgment. But there is a big difference between bad judgment and a criminal act.”

Surprised that prosecutors plan to retry Aguilar, D’Amico, a Bank of America vice president, declared, “I wish the government would go away and find something else to do.”

D’Amico added, “I was hoping to have a chance to shake his hand because I think he is a great man.”

Testifying in his own defense, Aguilar claimed the actions that led to his indictment were innocent actions to help friends.

When Monday’s verdict was read, Aguilar sighed, then bowed his head and shook it in relief. After a pause, he looked up and grinned at D’Amico. Some others in the packed courtroom gasped, and there was scattered clapping.

In a written statement that was read by one of his lawyers, Hugh Levine, Aguilar said, “I wish to thank God for his help. I look forward to further acquittals in this matter.”

Aguilar’s lead attorney, Patrick Hallinan, hugged juror Joan McErlean in the courthouse lobby as the jury dispersed. But Hallinan said, “We are disappointed that it was not a more complete vindication.”

Aguilar, who was appointed to the bench in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, could have been sentenced to 55 years in federal prison and fined $2 million if he had been convicted on all charges.

The judge’s attorneys said he planned to be back at work at the federal courthouse in San Jose as early as next Monday. The liberal jurist, one of the few Latinos to hold the lifetime position of federal judge, had been the only full-time federal judge assigned to the court in San Jose.

In addition to deadlocking on the racketeering charge, the jurors could not reach a verdict on a conspiracy count involving Aguilar and two co-defendants, former Teamster leader Rudy Tham and Abe Chapman, a distant relative of Aguilar’s and a self-described mob assassin of the 1930s nicknamed “The Trigger.” The three of them had been charged in the June, 1989, indictment with conspiracy to obstruct justice in connection with a case involving Tham.

During the trial, U.S. District Judge Stanley Weigel, who allegedly was approached by Aguilar on Tham’s behalf, had testified that he saw nothing criminal in Aguilar’s questioning of him about the status of Tham’s case.

The prosecution alleged that Aguilar was illegally trying to aid Tham at Chapman’s behest, in part because the two men were trying to find a job for Aguilar’s brother.

But juror McErlean said, “The evidence showed there wasn’t a conspiracy.”

Jury foreman D’Amico and McErlean said jurors leaned toward convicting Aguilar only on the charge that he leaked to Chapman the news that Chapman might be under wiretap surveillance by the federal government.

The most serious charge against the judge was that he turned his office into a racketeering enterprise. In analyzing Monday’s verdict, lawyer Doron Weinberg, who represented Tham, contended that by law the jurors should have acquitted the judge of racketeering because they had found him not guilty of one of two necessary elements of the crime--trying to influence Judge Conti on Cloud’s behalf.

Jurors deadlocked on the other element of the racketeering count, in which he was accused of helping another friend, Vera Hoff, conceal her whereabouts in Mexico after she fled to avoid an 18-month sentence for tax evasion in 1980.

Monday’s verdict was announced after seven days of deliberations by the jurors who heard five weeks of testimony.

Last Friday afternoon, the jury had told Bechtle it was unable to reach a verdict on any count facing the defendants. But Bechtle urged the jury to continue the deliberations, saying, “It is highly desirable to reach a verdict on all or substantially all or at least some of the counts in the indictment.”

Along with disputing the specifics of the charges against Aguilar, defense lawyers claimed the judge had been singled out because of his liberal rulings, including ones that sought to curtail law enforcement’s ability to combat marijuana cultivation and investigate employers of illegal aliens.

“This entire trial has been an attack on the independence of the judiciary,” defense attorney Charles Garry declared.