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Ex-judge extorted cash from lawyer

Friday, June 06, 2003

By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Former Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph Jaffe yesterday was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison and fined $5,000 for extorting $13,000 in cash from a lawyer whose firm had 1,300 asbestos cases pending before him.

	Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose at sentencing for Joseph Jaffe: "Your actions have left a stain on the fabric of the judicial system that will take years to cleanse." (Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette)

Before sentencing, Jaffe, 53 of Upper St. Clair, tearfully said he'd lost everything except the love of his daughter and promised that he'd be a "model citizen" and "never let myself be in this position again" if he could serve his time at home.

"I know how to be a good person. I am capable of doing good," he said. "I ask this court for leniency, and to allow me to remain at home with my daughter instead of sending me to prison."

Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose had hard words for the disgraced judge.

"Your actions," she said, "have left a stain on the fabric of the judicial system that will take years to cleanse."

The sentencing range under federal guidelines called for a term of 24 to 30 months.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Cessar asked for the higher end. Jaffe's lawyer, Robert Leight, asked for the lower end and produced several character witnesses on Jaffe's behalf.

One recounted how Jaffe had served as guardian for a severely retarded boy from 1977 until the boy's death in 1997. Another, Bryan Kurey, 26, of Washington, D.C., praised Jaffe for mentoring him since he was 10 through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

"I think of him as my father," Kurey said. "Emotionally, it's very sad to see him go through this."

Ambrose also ordered Jaffe to be on supervised release, the federal equivalent of probation, for three years after he gets out of prison, and told him to surrender his passport. He'll be allowed to self-report to prison, as is common for nonviolent federal defendants.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons will determine the facility and the reporting date, although Ambrose said she'll recommend a site close to Pittsburgh.

While some district justices and other court officers have been convicted for corruption or other crimes in the Western District of Pennsylvania, Jaffe was the first sitting Common Pleas judge to plead guilty to a federal offense here.

He admitted to violating the Hobbs Act, a federal law that prohibits public officials from using their official power to obtain property or services.

Jaffe showed a list of his personal debts to Joel Persky, a partner in the law firm of Goldberg Persky Jennings & White, and asked for financial help. The debts included a $4,200 vacation to Hilton Head, S.C., medical bills and a court judgment of $2,000.

Persky reported the solicitation to the FBI, and agents wired him with a recorder to tape subsequent meetings with Jaffe.

The judge promised Persky unlimited access to him in exchange for the cash and discussed a scheme in which he would order asbestos defendants to pay legal fees to Persky's firm.

Federal agents stopped Jaffe outside Persky's Squirrel Hill home on Aug. 7 and retrieved an envelope containing the cash.

Jaffe was indicted in the Persky extortion in September, then again in October when the grand jury said he had earlier presented a list of his debts to another lawyer, Edwin H. Beachler III.

Beachler didn't go to authorities right away. Instead, he gave Jaffe a check for $12,500 and said it was a loan.

After he was confronted by agents outside Persky's home, Jaffe called Beachler and told him to keep quiet about the payment. He later demanded financial help and a job from Beachler, the grand jury said.

Cessar said yesterday that that conduct was particularly offensive because Jaffe asked Beachler to lie and because he destroyed evidence, meaning the check.

Torsten Ove can be reached at tove@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2620.