Justices Reinstate Conviction of U.S. Judge in California

The Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the criminal conviction of the first federal judge in California to be found guilty of a felony.

On an 8-1 vote, the high court upheld the conviction of U.S. District Judge Robert P. Aguilar of San Jose for disclosing an FBI wiretap to an ex-mobster.

The judge, a 1980 appointee of then-President Jimmy Carter, is still receiving a salary and is handling settlement conferences. While he has another appeal remaining on a separate issue in the case, he could be impeached and sent to prison for six months when all legal issues are settled.

Aguilar’s troubles began in 1987 when federal agents undertook an investigation of health care fraud in the San Francisco area. They targeted a former Teamsters official and an aging mobster, both of whom had long criminal records.

On July 9 of that year, the agents saw the judge leave the federal courthouse with the mobster, Abe Chapman, a family friend.

When U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham heard about the incident from agents, he spoke to Aguilar at a legal conference and warned him to stay away from Chapman, telling him his name “had come up” on an application for a wiretap. Judges are obliged by law to keep such information confidential but Aguilar contacted a nephew and told him that he “had overheard at work about the possibility of Abie’s phone being wiretapped.” He told the nephew not to discuss the matter over the phone but to warn Chapman.

The agents also learned via a secretly recorded conversation that Chapman and an attorney representing the former Teamsters official had met over lunch with Aguilar to discuss how they could influence another judge who was set to rule on an appeal regarding the ex-Teamster. Aguilar in turn discussed the case with the judge, who subsequently was obliged to recuse himself from deciding the matter.

Later, when two FBI agents interviewed Aguilar, he lied about both the wiretap and the subject of the lunch conversation.

Prosecutors brought an eight-count indictment against Aguilar, who testified that his actions had embarrassed himself and his family but argued that they were not criminal. A jury convicted Aguilar on two counts, one of obstructing a grand jury inquiry and the other of disclosing the wiretap.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out both convictions. It held that lying to the FBI agents did not actually obstruct the grand jury and that the wiretap had expired before Aguilar disclosed it.

Disagreeing in part, the high court’s ruling in the case (United States vs. Aguilar, 94-270) reinstated the wiretap conviction and said that it is illegal to reveal any order for a phone tap, whether it is currently in use or not. On a separate 6-3 vote, however, the court agreed that Aguilar’s actions did not go far enough to constitute obstruction of justice.

Robert D. Luskin, Aguilar’s lawyer, said he will go back before the 9th Circuit Court on the separate issue, challenging the instructions given to the jury.