A Brooklyn lawyer was so confident of his control over a judge, he actually boasted once that, after plying the jurist with drinks, the lawyer’s wish was Gerald Garson’s command.
“I was getting Garson drunk for two hours. He’ll do what I want,” attorney Paul Siminovsky boasted to shady Israeli businessman Nissim Elmann in November 2002.
The comment was tape-recorded as part of many wiretaps a chief judge authorized after a Brooklyn wife and mother, Frieda Hanimov, complained Elmann claimed to have undue influence over Garson.
In the end, Garson, Siminovsky, Elmann and others were arrested as a result of the divorce-fixing probe.
Also busted were retired court clerk, Paul Sarnell, and a court officer, Louis Salerno, who once worked in Garson’s courtroom.
They are now on trial for allegedly steering cases to the judge in exchange for graft, including electronic equipment from Elmann’s Brooklyn warehouse.
They maintain their innocence.
In one tape-recorded conversation played for jurors yesterday, Sarnell sounds as if he can pull strings in Garson’s courtroom – although the tape was made two months after he retired.
When Elmann tells Sarnell in the November 2002 wiretapped conversation that he has a matter pending before Garson, Sarnell responds as if he is the sitting judge.
“Before me?” Sarnell asks.
“In Garson,” Elmann says.
“OK, I’ll call somebody,” Sarnell says.
But Elmann says: “. . . I’d rather use my favor for something important.”
On a later date, Elmann makes it sound as if he’s running Garson’s courtroom. He reassures divorce litigant Avraham Levi that he’ll quash an order of protection the husband’s wife has gotten against him.
“I and Garson are voiding for you the order of protection. Don’t worry,” Elmann tells Levi in January 2003.
Levi has since pleaded guilty to giving the businessman $10,000 in an attempt to influence Garson.
It is unclear whether the money ever reached the judge, who has pleaded not guilty to receiving bribes in the form of drinks and dinners from Siminovsky.