Ex-N.Y. Judge Gets 15 Months for Threats

Labeling the case “bizarre and aberrational,” a federal judge Thursday sentenced Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of New York state, to 15 months in prison for terrorizing his former lover and her teen-age daughter.

Wachtler, 63, a pillar of Republican politics who had been regarded as a potentially strong challenger to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo in next year’s gubernatorial election, resigned from the bench in November when the charges were brought. He pleaded guilty in March to one count of using communication devices across state lines to threaten kidnaping.

“My only hope now is to try to put my life back together and to try to make amends for what I’ve done,” Wachtler said in court before his sentencing.

Defense lawyers contended that the former chief judge of the Court of Appeals was mentally ill when he mailed threatening letters to Joy Silverman, a Republican fund raiser, after their four-year affair came to an end.

“What he did was unacceptable and wrong but one must consider the nature of his life and what he has done for society,” Ted Wells, one of the defendant’s lawyers told District Judge Anne E. Thompson before she announced her sentence.

But the defense lawyer’s contention that depression and mental illness were at the root of the former judge’s crime was quickly disputed by U.S. Atty. Michael Chertoff.

“His plan was not just to harass Joy Silverman but to torture and torment her and her daughter,” Chertoff told Judge Thompson. “I don’t dispute there were emotional problems with Sol Wachtler, but he knew what he was doing.”

In imposing sentence in Trenton, N.J., the venue chosen because Wachtler’s first harassing letters to his former mistress were mailed from New Jersey, Thompson said that his action was “not an expression of love. It was an expression of anger.”

In addition to the 15-month prison sentence, three months less than prosecutors sought, she imposed financial penalties totaling almost $61,000.

Wachtler will pay a fine of $30,000 to the government and $30,900 in restitution to Silverman, the subject of his 13-month long campaign of harassment. Prosecutors charged that Wachtler threatened to kidnap Silverman’s daughter and mailed the teen-ager a condom with a letter containing sexual references.

As chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Wachtler had authority over all New York state courts and more than 5,000 other judges. He had been frequently mentioned as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

His indictment--exposing the secret life of a pillar of the judiciary--caused a sensation in New York.

Silverman, a Manhattan socialite who President George Bush tried to appoint in 1989 as ambassador to Barbados but who was rejected by a Senate committee as too inexperienced, complained to William S. Sessions, FBI director at the time the investigation was launched, that someone was threatening her.

Her allegations set off massive FBI scrutiny. Agents eventually traced threatening calls to phones Wachtler used and recovered his fingerprints. When he was seized in his auto, a voice-altering device was confiscated.

Outside court on Thursday, the former top judge stopped to talk with reporters.

“I have had better days,” he said.