Legal Ethics
Former Ind. Judge Gets 15 Months in Court Fraud Case
Posted Jul 11, 2008, 09:24 am CST
By Martha Neil
A former municipal judge in Schererville, Ind., who funneled defendants' fees to a driving school she secretly owned and demanded kickbacks from a counseling firm that worked with her court, among other alleged misconduct, has been sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.
Deborah Riga could have gotten two years, but her sentence reflects her cooperation in an ongoing public corruption investigation, according to the Post-Tribune and Associated Press. U.S. District Judge Philip Simon also agreed to split her sentence into five-month blocks of prison time, home detention and supervised release, so she wouldn't lose her job in Sarasota, Fla., where she now resides.
A defense lawyer had sought greater leniency for Riga, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to four counts of mail fraud. She allegedly made $30,000 from various court-related transactions between 2000 and 2003.
"I remember the day she was sworn in, and it was a very proud day in everybody's life," said her attorney, Nick Thiros, who blamed Riga's misconduct on bad advice from "shady" political advisers. "And before you know it, all these political hacks were involved."
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Comments
Posted by kay sieverding - 4 months, 1 week, 5 days, 6 hours, 24 minutes ago
Municipal judges wield the power of local government. In Steamboat Springs CO I was threatened with 18 months for gardening without a gardening permit even though no one else ever got a gardening permit. I had to sell land for $1 to the city council president in order to avoid trial.
The city attorney there used to be municipal judge. He has been city attorney for about 15 years while simultaneously having a private practice, which I believe does business with people doing business with the city. By statute their assistant city attorney is responsible for making sure that the city follows the constitution and observes its own laws but as one observed to me, the city attorney is the “front man”.
I also saw a part time prosecutor for the same small city (population about 10,000) offering DUI defense services even though DUI goes thru municipal court.