Judge Aguilar Found Guilty on 2 Charges

U.S. District Judge Robert P. Aguilar was convicted Wednesday of obstruction of justice for lying to the FBI and for alerting an aging mobster that he was under surveillance. Aguilar becomes the first federal judge in California to be found guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

But the jury acquitted the bespectacled jurist from San Jose of the most serious of five charges against him--conspiracy to obstruct justice by trying to influence another judge to overturn the 1980 embezzlement conviction of a former Teamsters leader.

Aguilar, 59, also was cleared of two lesser charges--advising a lawyer who was an old friend to lie to a grand jury that was investigating the judge, and of a second count of telling mobster Abe Chapman, 84, a longtime family friend, that he was a target of law enforcement surveillance.

It was Aguilar’s second trial. In March, a jury acquitted him on one count and deadlocked on seven others after six weeks of testimony. The new jury took four days to decide his fate after hearing only six days of testimony.

In addition to being the first in California, Aguilar is only the third federal judge in the nation to be convicted on criminal charges. Even if imprisoned, he can continue to collect his pay of $89,500 until he resigns or is ousted by Congress.

U.S. District Judge Louis Bechtle set sentencing for Nov. 1 and could send Aguilar to prison for five years on each of the two counts he was convicted of and impose a fine of $250,000.

Aguilar, appointed to the federal bench in 1980, stiffly refused to comment after the verdict Wednesday morning.

“It’s unfortunate because it ends a long and distinguished career,” Paul Meltzer, Aguilar’s attorney, said of the conviction.

Meltzer said he did not know whether Aguilar would remain on the bench and fight any impeachment attempt by Congress. But he added that the judge may follow whatever advice he is given by Chief U.S. District Judge William Ingram of the San Francisco area. Ingram did not return a phone call.

Although Meltzer was heartened somewhat by Aguilar’s acquittal on the main conspiracy charge, the lawyer noted, “In the end, I think you have to face the fact that . . . he was convicted of a felony.”

Prosecutor William Keefer said he was “pleased with the guilty verdict. It was supported by the evidence.” He said he was “not about to second-guess the jury” about the three counts on which Aguilar was acquitted.

Hoping to win a conviction the second time around, prosecutors had hired a consultant to help them pick a more favorable jury. But even with the expert’s advice, there were two jurors who dabbed their eyes during Meltzer’s closing argument.

Bechtle took extraordinary measures to ensure that jurors would not comment about the case after the verdict, sending them out a rear exit to waiting vans which left from the basement.

Jurors in Aguilar’s first trial blasted the prosecution. One original juror called the judge a “great man.” Aguilar had worked his way up from poverty to become one of the few Latino federal judges.

On the witness stand, Aguilar admitted taking actions that “embarrassed” himself, his court, and his family. But he denied committing any crime and maintained that the FBI singled him out because of his liberal views.

Aguilar was indicted on June 13, 1989. A year and a half earlier, state law enforcement investigators spotted him having lunch with Chapman. At the time, Chapman was a target of a wide-ranging organized-crime investigation.

The indictment outlined a complex conspiracy among Aguilar, Chapman and former San Francisco Teamsters leader Rudy Tham, 67, and accused the judge of using his office as a racketeering enterprise. But after the first jury deadlocked on the racketeering count, the government dropped it.

The government also tried Aguilar alone in the second trial. Aguilar, Tham and Chapman had appeared together in the first.

In the honed-down case, Aguilar was charged with conspiring to use his office to persuade U.S. District Judge Stanley Weigel to overturn Tham’s 1980 conviction for embezzling $2,000 from a Teamsters local in San Francisco. The craggy-faced Tham wanted the conviction overturned so he could regain his Teamsters leadership role.

Although Aguilar was acquitted of the conspiracy, Tham was convicted separately two months ago of conspiring to obstruct justice by enlisting Aguilar in the effort to influence Weigel.

Testimony showed that Aguilar did ask Weigel about the status of Tham’s case. But Weigel cut off the inquiry, sensing that it was improper, and later withdrew from Tham’s case.

Tham’s hopes of exoneration crumbled when another judge sent him to prison for violating terms of his parole by associating with felons, among them Chapman.

Aguilar insisted he did not intentionally lie to FBI agents when they interviewed him about a range of matters, including whether he spoke to Tham’s lawyer, an old friend of Aguilar, about the case before Weigel.

Aguilar acknowledged being reticent during the 1988 FBI interview because he believed the agents were “zeroing in on me and I wasn’t going to give them a loaded gun.” In the end, jurors convicted him of lying to the agents.

Aguilar also denied that he meant to leak confidential information to Chapman that he was under surveillance. Testimony from other witnesses suggested that Aguilar told Chapman the mobster was under the FBI surveillance so that Chapman would stay away from him. The judge was convicted of passing information to Chapman on one occasion.

No new trial has been set for Chapman. Chapman, long a friend of Tham, is related to Aguilar through marriage. A diminutive and doddering mobster, Chapman has a record of drug convictions dating back more than half a century. Long ago, he was nicknamed “The Trigger.” These days, his lawyer says, Chapman’s mental competence is in question.

Aguilar’s motives remain unclear. But Keefer and co-prosecutor Sara Lord indicated the judge harbored a vendetta against the FBI because of a belief that he was a law enforcement target. Prosecutors also noted that Tham helped an alcoholic brother of Aguilar get a warehouseman’s job.

Aguilar was appointed to the Santa Clara Superior Court in 1979 by Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., after spending nearly two decades practicing law in San Jose. President Carter named him to the federal bench in 1980.

Any move to oust Aguilar could take months, even years. The U.S. House of Representatives must impeach him and the Senate must convict him by a two-thirds vote. In all, seven federal judges in U.S. history have been removed from office, three of them in the past four years.

In 1986, Harry Claiborne of Nevada was impeached and removed from office after being convicted of tax evasion. Walter Nixon of Mississippi was removed in November, having been convicted of perjury in 1984. Judge Alcee Hastings of Florida, though acquitted of taking bribes, was removed in October.

“Normally, the process doesn’t begin until all the appeals are final,” a House Judiciary committee aide said. “Congress has the power to impeach at any time, but the usual process is to wait until the court action is finished.”

Times staff writers Harold Maass in San Francisco and David Savage in Washington contributed to this story.