A Chicago prosecutor known as ”The Barracuda” has been painfully hooked, and, no surprise, he`s not pleased.
”The Barracuda” is James Schweitzer, an assistant U.S. attorney with an aggressive streak and impressive track record. He was co-prosecutor in the
”Marquette 10” police corruption case and gained the Greylord conviction of Cook County Judge Raymond Sodini and the extortion conviction of former Cook County Commissioner Martin Tuchow.
But a federal magistrate in Madison, Wis., has rained on his parade in unusual fashion: He`s ordered your federal government to pay $10,596 in fines for ”vexatiously” and repeatedly failing to comply with pretrial orders in a Madison case. Of the $10,596, Schweitzer is to personally fork over $4,529.
Our discovery of the order from U.S. Magistrate James Groh prompted scurrying in the U.S. attorney`s office here, with several top officials contacting us in defense of Schweitzer. Clearly, there was a sense of impending embarrassment, preferably to be avoided.
The order stems from a tax fraud case brought last year against attorney Charles Giesen, attorney Peter Safronoff and William Garrott, the owner of Shady Lady Bathhouse and Charlotte`s Web, alleged by the government to be Madison massage parlors. The Chicago office and Schweitzer got the ”sham sale” and lease-back case after the U.S. attorney in Madison, John Byrnes, stepped aside because he`d gone to law school with Giesen and Safronoff.
The three were ultimately acquitted, but not before Schweitzer and Groh proved they aren`t potential companions for an Upper Peninsula camping trip.
On Sept. 2, a daunting total of 67 defense motions were filed in Madison. Copies were mailed to and received by Schweitzer on Sept. 4, the day he was to show in Groh`s chambers for a 2 p.m. pretrial conference. He began reading them as he drove to Madison.
Groh said he wanted to take up all the motions. Schweitzer said he hadn`t had time to review them all and wanted to file a written response. Groh declined and gave him 90 minutes to read everything. The conference resumed at 4:30 p.m. and, in an act that belies taxpayer suspicions about how hard some federal employees work, continued until 12:15 a.m. That`s right, into the next morning.
Out of this came a 13-page pretrial order that forced the government to respond in writing to 50 of the 67 defense motions. What Groh deemed the inadequacy of Schweitzer`s responses to that order is the basis of the fines. Groh charges that Schweitzer ”unreasonably and vexatiously multiplied, complicated and prolonged the proceedings,” failed to file a sworn brief as ordered, opting instead for an ”unsworn” statement that was ”a charade.” Such lapses, said Groh, resulted in two days of hearings that could possibly have been avoided.
Schweitzer did have other things on his mind, like preparing for Sodini`s trial. In fact, he eventually had to let another Chicago prosecutor, G. Roger Markley, handle the Madison trial. It explains why Groh hit the government with $6,067 of the fine, holding it in the wrong for ”assigning more work to Mr. Schweitzer than he can responsibly perform.”
Milwaukee`s William Coffey, who represented Giesen, said Groh`s order was ”highly unusual. I`ve never seen one like it.” Chicago`s Harvey Silets, who represented Safronoff, declined to comment, and Madison`s Sarah Crandall, who represented Garrott, could not be reached. The $10,596 in fines equals the defendants` costs, expenses and attorneys` fees for the two days of hearings on pretrial motions.
Schweitzer is known to be quite displeased with the events and in a previous and related affidavit wrote: ”I take my responsibilities as an assistant U.S. attorney very seriously. I certainly would welcome any inquiries made as to the manner in which I conducted myself in this case.”
The government filed a notice of appeal on Monday and bases its appeal, in part, on claims that Groh was ”clearly erroneous” in his finding and that he doesn`t have authority to impose the sanctions. Groh previously acknowledged that government claim on his authority, writing that a government brief on the issue was ”not sullied by a citation of a single case.”
ANOTHER THOMPSON
Remember the hubbub when Jayne Thompson, wife of the governor, tried unsuccessfully to become a federal judge? Well, another Thompson relative wants to wear black robes.
Karen Thompson, the governor`s sister and an assistant public defender in the juvenile division, has gained a spot among the final 20 candidates vying for 10 vacancies as associate judge of the Cook County Circuit Court.
Other candidates are Michael Murray, brother of Illinois Appeals Judge James Murray; Peter Bianco Jr., said to have Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan`s blessing; Laurence J. Bolon; Lawrence B. Brodsky; Philip L. Bronstein; Judith N. Cohen; Sheldon Gardner; Michael A. Kreloff; Bertina E. Lampkin; Robert J. Mangler; John F. McBride, former executive director of the Chicago Bar Association; Dennis J. Porter; Joan M. Pucillo; Harvey Schwartz;
James F. Stack; Margaret K. Stanton; Mary M. Thomas; William O. Walters; and James H. Williams.
The new associate judges will be elected by full Circuit Court judges on ballots to be mailed next week. It`s nice work, if you can get it. Effective July 1, associate judges will be making an annual salary of $75,113, or $5,000 less than full Circuit Court judges. They have virtually the same authority as full Circuit Court judges.
More than 150 people applied. Finalists were chosen by a five-member panel and needed at least a minimum qualified rating from the judicial evaluation committee of the Chicago Bar Association. Eighteen of the 150 received a ”highly qualified” rating from the association, and, of those, just seven remain. They are Bolon, Brodsky, Cohen, Lampkin, Mangler, Murray and Stack.
`EYE OF NEEDLE` AFTER 8 YEARS
The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that Melvin H. Sullivan has spent the last eight years in prison for a murder conviction that might never have happened but for the allegedly lousy work of his lawyers.
Upholding District Judge Charles Norgle, the appeals court declared that Sullivan lawyers David Wiener and Mark Lieberman failed to fully investigate a defense for their client. And while the appeals court was not convinced of Sullivan`s innocence, his current attorney, Martha Mills, has demonstrated a
”reasonable probability that, but for counsel`s unprofessional efforts,”
Sullivan would have been acquitted.
The opinion, authored by Judge Kenneth Ripple, one of the new picks of President Reagan, said that Sullivan`s case ”is one of those very few that should pass through the eye of the needle” and ordered Sullivan retried within 120 days or released.
Mills believes that Sullivan, 35, is ”an innocent man” and characterized the work of Wiener and Lieberman as ”one of the worst cases of incompetent counsel I`ve ever seen.”
Sullivan`s trip through the halls of justice began after he was found guilty in 1979 in a bench trial by Cook County Judge Robert Sklodowski for the March 18, 1979, murder of Michael Grayson outside the Pepperbox Lounge on the West Side. The well-respected Wiener had been appointed his lawyer by Sklodowski. But due to a press of personal business, associate Lieberman handled the actual trial.
Lieberman relied on an alibi defense and, at the close of the trial, asked for a continuance to allow him to locate and interview additional witnesses. Sklodowski declined, found Sullivan guilty and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Sullivan then hired James Montgomery, the former City of Chicago corporation counsel, who asked for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered witnesses.
Sklodowski denied that motion, ruling that the five witnesses had been named by the state several months earlier and would have been found were it not for the lack of diligence of the defense. After losing a state appeal, Sullivan filed suit in federal court and, after hearing four of five witnesses, Norgle agreed that they could have been reached and that their testimony directly contradicted the state`s chief witness.
