Judge’s ‘Sordid Mess’ Leads to New Trial

Climaxing a protracted legal battle over a convoluted case with plot twists galore, a Taiwanese cardsharp convicted of kidnapping has been granted a new trial because a Pomona Superior Court judge had sex with the man’s wife.

Ming Ching Jin, 39, is due a new trial because former Judge George W. Trammell III committed sexual misconduct by having an affair with Jin’s wife, Pifen Lo, Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel ruled Monday.

Fasel also ordered a new trial for the couple’s baby sitter, Yu Ching Chu, 33, who had been convicted along with Jin of kidnapping and robbing a La Puente couple.

In a hearing Tuesday at the Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles, further proceedings in the case were assigned to Judge Jacqueline Connor. A new trial date is expected to be set at a hearing on Aug. 15.

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The back-to-back court sessions marked the latest developments in a case that Fasel, in comments made Monday from the bench, described as a “sordid mess”--a tangled tale that involves allegations of Chinese mob influence as well as evidence offered in court of Trammell’s obsession with Lo, a 37-year-old mother of three.

Jin’s lawyer, Robert S. Gerstein, said Tuesday, “Our position was completely vindicated.”

Lo, speaking from her Monrovia home, called Fasel’s new-trial order “proof I was not lying,” and said, “I’m happy. My husband gets a new trial.”

Trammell, 60, did not return a call Tuesday to his Pomona home.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office indicated in March that it was not filing criminal charges against Trammell. But prosecutors are now taking a fresh review, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Tuesday.

The state Commission on Judicial Performance, meanwhile, confirmed in April that it launched its own ethics investigation of Trammell. That probe is ongoing.

Trammell, who had been a judge since 1971, abruptly retired in January after investigators began inquiring about his relationship with Lo. Trammell has characterized the relationship as amiable but not sexual.

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When he retired, Trammell maintained that he feared retribution from Chinese mobsters--a probation report describes Jin as a gambler suspected of ties to Asian organized crime--and asserted that he became friendly with Lo as a means of protection.

Jin, Lo and Chu were arrested in March, 1995.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said at the time that a search of their house, then in Rowland Heights, turned up explosives, weapons and counterfeit Microsoft software--the first time such counterfeit software had shown up in the United States.

The discovery of the weapons and the explosives prompted authorities to investigate possible links to the Wah Ching, a United States-spawned Asian crime group with links to the 300-year-old criminal societies in Hong Kong.

In January 1996, Lo pleaded no contest to lesser charges. Three months later, on April 26, over the objection of prosecutors, Trammell sentenced her to five years probation, sparing her prison time.

In July 1996, Jin and Chu were convicted of kidnapping. Both faced prison terms of life without the possibility of parole. But sentencing was still pending when Trammell stepped down.

According to Fasel, Trammell developed powerful feelings for Lo well before Jin went to trial. Fasel said the relationship between Trammell and Lo turned sexual after Lo was released from jail on probation and after Jin was convicted, but prior to his being sentenced.

In September 1996, according to Fasel, Trammell summoned Lo to his Pomona chambers and told her that if she wanted Jin--who by then had been convicted but not sentenced--out of jail, she would “have to pay the price.”

A few days later, Trammell and Lo had sex at the judge’s house, Fasel said in a six-page “findings of fact” issued May 30.

The affair continued for about four months until Trammell stepped down, according to several parties in the case.

As the affair went on, Lo secretly recorded a number of her telephone conversations with Trammell. In one conversation, he told her he loved her “100%,” Fasel said. In another, he asked her if she was “sore” from “their activities the previous evening,” Fasel said.

In his ruling Monday, Fasel, who had conducted a lengthy hearing on the case this spring, noted it was possible that Jin had set up Trammell. But, Fasel said, even if Jin had offered Lo as bait, a judge “shouldn’t be biting.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Morrison, the prosecutor in the case, said Tuesday that the “entire post-trial proceeding has been an embarrassment to the legal system.”

Nonetheless, he vowed to press ahead with retrials for Chu and Jin.

“The people of the state of California have been harmed by Trammell’s actions,” Morrison said. “But Fasel’s decision makes it clear to critics of our legal system that the law cannot, will not, tolerate even the appearance of impropriety.”