Judge to Plead Guilty to Misconduct, Sources Say

Capping an extensive FBI investigation, retired Superior Court Judge George W. Trammell III has agreed to plead guilty to federal criminal charges of abusing his judicial authority, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.

The charges will be filed in federal court today in a formal document known as an “information.”

The plea agreement--reached secretly in negotiations between Trammell, his legal representatives, federal prosecutors and the FBI--means that the retired Pomona Superior Court judge will serve at least some prison time, the sources said.

The criminal charges stem from Trammell’s relationship with a woman named Pifen Lo, who had sex with the judge while her husband was a defendant in Trammell’s courtroom on kidnapping and other charges.

Trammell, according to an investigation by the Judicial Council in 1997, pressured Lo into having sex, telling her she would have to “pay the price” unless she wanted her husband to go to prison for life.

Trammell, 64, and his lawyer could not be reached for comment. The FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office would not comment on the case Wednesday.

But sources said Wednesday that Trammell will be pleading guilty to federal statutes involving mail fraud and a scheme to deprive others of “intangible honest services.”

As part of the plea agreement, Trammell will be admitting that he was involved in the sexual relationship--which he has denied in the past--and that he concealed it from the parties in a criminal case and the public, the sources said.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Trammell will not be arrested and brought to court. Instead, he will be issued a summons commanding him to appear in court at a later date so he can verbally enter a guilty plea before a judge, according to law enforcement sources.

It is extremely unusual for a judge to be criminally prosecuted. Only a handful of judges have crossed from one side of the bench to the other in recent California history.

Trammell retired in January 1997 after various judicial and law enforcement groups began inquiring about his relationship with the woman. He was a municipal judge from May 1971 to January 1988 and a Superior Court judge until he retired.

According to the state Commission on Judicial Performance, Trammell said the relationship was amiable but not sexual. He said he maintained the relationship as a means of protection from Asian organized crime figures.

Lo, who was 37 at the time, was the wife of Ming Ching Jin, a Taiwanese cardsharp who had been convicted in Trammell’s courtroom of kidnapping.

Trammell was familiar with Lo because he had sentenced her in an earlier kidnapping and counterfeiting case. In September 1996, according to the judicial inquiry, Trammell summoned Lo to his chambers for a one-on-one encounter. It was there that he told her that if she wanted to see her husband out of prison, she would have to consent to having sex with Trammell, the inquiry found.

The Orange County judge leading the inquiry ultimately ruled that Trammell committed sexual misconduct by having an affair with Jin’s wife between the time Jin was convicted and Trammell’s sentencing of him. He ordered that Jin be granted a new trial.

Trammell was later censured by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, which found that he tried to keep secret a four-month sexual relationship with Lo.

That panel, ruling 9-0, also found that he essentially became obsessed with Lo, using his office to continue the relationship and having numerous private conversations with her in his chambers, at his home and over the telephone.

Trammell also was investigated by the district attorney’s office, but Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti declined to bring charges against him.

That, and other factors, brought in the FBI’s public corruption squad, which investigates wrongdoing by public officials. The squad quietly began investigating the case a few years ago, sources said.

Late Wednesday, Jin’s lawyer hailed the FBI for its dogged investigation.

“There is no question--and the record establishes it--that he acted absolutely outrageous,” lawyer Robert S. Gerstein said of Trammell. “He certainly acted illegally, in that it was just wrong for him to force a relationship upon the wife of a defendant while he was presiding over the trial of that defendant.”

Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor, agreed.

“What the judge did was a terrible, egregious abuse of his power,” Chemerinsky said, “and I think it is quite significant that the federal government said this kind of abuse is a federal crime even though the district attorney said he wouldn’t prosecute it as a state crime.”