A convicted narcotics dealer who is cooperating with the federal government has testified that he gave $25,000 to his lawyer to deliver to Circuit Judge Michael Close in 1979 to fix a murder case against him.
Robert Bridges, 37, a convicted narcotics peddler and former bodyguard for a crime syndicate figure Sam Sarcinelli, has passed a lie-detector test administered by the federal government and is cooperating in an investigation of Close and Bridges` former attorney, James Cutrone, according to testimony and court documents.
Close said in a telephone interview Friday that he was reluctant to comment on the allegations, but characterized the testimony of Bridges as
”gossip . . . gossip under oath.”
”You know,” Close said, ”if I wanted to give you a comment, I certainly would. The problem with doing that is it would get me in a situation where it would put me in a public forum. I would be either affirming or rebutting a statement. I honestly feel it`s inappropriate for a judge to do that.
”Some guy says somebody was giving money to somebody else to do something,” he added. ”It just doesn`t do the judiciary any good for a particular judge to comment.”
Bridges and a codefendant were tried simultaneously in October, 1979, in the murder of a Gold Coast art dealer. Close was the presiding judge in the trial at the Criminal Courts Building.
Bridges chose a bench trial and was acquitted by Close. The other man chose a jury trial and the jury convicted him of murder. The same evidence was presented against both men, according to the prosecutor in the case.
Close, who is now assigned to a Cook County branch court in Skokie, is also under scrutiny in the federal Operation Greylord investigation of county court corruption, according to sources.
James LeFevour, a former Chicago police officer and admitted bagman, has testified that in 1981 he accepted $1,000 from an undercover FBI agent posing as a crooked lawyer to fix a narcotics case pending before Close.
In addition, former Downstate Judge Brocton Lockwood, who posed as a corrupt judge in the Greylord probe, has told federal investigators that he was at a Northwest Side tavern when an envelope was passed to Close by former Chicago police officer Ira Blackwood, who was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for accepting bribes to arrange for cases to be fixed. The meeting is described in government documents.
Twenty-one people, including four judges, have been convicted in the Greylord investigation for fixing traffic violations, drunken driving cases and misdemeanor battery and theft cases.
The claim by Bridges against Close is the first allegation that a judge took money to fix a charge as serious as murder.
Efforts to reach Cutrone for comment were unsuccessful. In May a federal prosecutor said in court that the government had been unable to find Cutrone to serve him with a subpoena for an undisclosed matter.
Bridges has an extensive record of criminal arrests and convictions. He admitted in court that his life of crime began with the theft of cars for chop shop operators when he was 15 years old and that he later sold cocaine and was a crime syndicate bodyguard.
He agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors last fall after he was sentenced to 12 years in prison by U.S. District Judge John Nordberg for a narcotics conviction.
Donald Morano, who represented Bridges in his appeal of that narcotics conviction, said Friday that Bridges has passed a government-administe red lie-detector test concerning his allegations about Close, Cutrone and other matters. Morano declined further comment.
Bridges` cooperation was revealed by Morano and federal prosecutor Joan Safford at a sentencing hearing in June before U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall on a second narcotics conviction.
Morano said Bridges` cooperation was ”extensive” and that Bridges was going to be placed in the federal witness protection program. Morano also said at the hearing that Bridges would testify in eight or nine trials in the future.
Bridges told Marshall, ”I`m cooperating against all the people that I dealt with before, Your Honor.”
Safford said that Bridges was at ”a very critical juncture” in his cooperation with the government. ”He is a terrific witness,” she said.
Marshall, who imposed a 6-year prison term to be served concurrently with the 12-year sentence, said U.S. District Judge James Moran told him that Bridges was a ”terrific witness.”
Bridge testified as a government witness in the trial of Irving Napue in May before Moran. Napue was subsequently convicted of narcotics peddling and is awaiting sentencing.
In his testimony, Bridges made the first public allegations that Close had taken a payoff to fix the 1979 murder case.
That murder case involved the fatal shooting of Donald Ewing, an art dealer who was suspected of running a high-priced call girl ring out of his apartment at 17 E. Goethe St. Bridges, Timothy Perkins and John Cartaliano were charged with the murder.
Bridges and Cartaliano technically were tried separately because Cartaliano had asked for a jury trial and Bridges sought a bench trial, in which the decision is made by the judge.
Close presided over both trials simultaneously, and testimony was the same for both. Perkins testified that he was outside Ewing`s apartment when Bridges and Cartaliano went inside. Bridges` girlfriend testified that she accompanied the two men to the apartment, but fled when the shooting began.
The jury found Cartaliano guilty of murder and he was later sentenced to life in prison. Perkins pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after testifying for the state in return for a lighter sentence. After the jury verdict, Close returned his verdict of innocent for Bridges.
The two assistant state`s attorneys who prosecuted the case, Jerry Latherow and Jim Obbish, said at the time that the different verdicts probably meant the jury believed the prosecution witnesses and the judge did not.
But Latherow, who is now in private practice, said in an interview last week that he had heard rumors in 1979 that Bridges was boasting that the case had been fixed.
”I heard that Bridges had bragged that he was going to get the case taken care of,” Latherow said.
Latherow, who said that he was ”surprised” at Close`s decision at the time, said: ”I was in front of Close for two years as a prosecutor. I liked him. The guy was such a straight judge for two years that I have difficulty believing he`d do anything. I still think at that time he was honest.”
But in his testimony in the Napue trial, Bridges outlined what he said was his relationship with his lawyer, Cutrone, and how the alleged $25,000 payment was made.
Bridges said Cutrone had been his lawyer for several years and that he believed him when Cutrone said he could get him off by paying a bribe to the judge.
”That is because on other occasions this same lawyer had told you (that) you would get off and you had gotten off every time, hadn`t you?” Safford asked Bridges in court.
”Yes, ma`am,” Bridges replied.
”Even though most of the time you had done the things you were charged with, is that right?” asked Safford.
”Yes, ma`am,” Bridges replied.
Under cross-examination by Thomas A. Durkin, Napue`s lawyer, Bridges said that he had paid a $10,000 retainer to Cutrone to represent him in the murder trial.
Bridges testified that Cutrone asked for more money to ”take care of the case . . . fix it. He told me that I would have to have the full amount paid before the trial was over with.”
Bridges testified that during the murder trial he and Cutrone met for coffee and Cutrone told him, ”Don`t worry about anything. Everything will be okay.”
Bridges said that Cutrone went back upstairs and into Close`s chambers. When he came out, Bridges said, ”He told me everything was going to be okay.”
Durkin asked Bridges, ”You don`t know whether that money ever changed hands, you just believe it did, correct?”
”Yes, sir,” Bridges replied.
”That is because you saw the lawyer go back in the judge`s chambers after he was going to take care of the case, correct?” Durkin asked.
”Yes, sir,” Bridges said.
”You believe the lawyer paid the judge $25,000, right?” Durkin asked.
”Yes, sir,” Bridges said.
”Cash?” Durkin asked.
”Yes, sir,` Bridge answered.
The alleged payoff is under investigation by the U.S. attorney`s office and the FBI, according to sources close to the probe. The investigators are also looking into statements made by Blackwood that Close took payments to fix narcotics cases.
According to documents, Blackwood and Judge Lockwood met with Close in a Northwest Side bar on April 28, 1983.
In one document in which the judge`s name was excised, Blackwood said he was meeting a judge to deliver ”rent.” During the meeting, Lockwood left the room, and when he returned he spotted a sealed envelope in the judge`s pocket.
”Later the Circuit Court judge said that he had a lot of expenses, including $15,000 a year for private schools for his children,” the document stated.
Blackwood later told Lockwood that the judge was ”living well beyond his means” and was upset because he had been ”shorted” on payoffs on two felony cases.
A document identifying Close as the Circuit Court judge was given to defense lawyers during Blackwood`s trial but was never introduced into evidence.
