Attorney William Borders had an interested client.
The man, who identified himself as convicted racketeer Frank Romano, was willing to pay well for a service that Borders promised to provide: arranging for reduced jail terms and the return of $845,000 in property that had been confiscated by the court after Romano and his brother were convicted of racketeering.
Borders, a well-known Washington attorney, said he knew the judge in the case very well. For a $150,000 bribe, it could be arranged.
The man posing as Romano was actually an FBI agent, Paul Rico. The FBI was investigating Borders because of reports he was a middleman in bribery schemes involving a federal judge.
Before handing over the money, Rico asked for proof that Borders could get the judge to go along. Borders suggested that Rico simply name a time and a public place; he would see that the judge appeared there. That would be proof that Borders had the judge in his pocket.
They agreed on the main dining room of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Sept. 16, 1981, at 8 p.m.
At 7:45 p.m., Judge Alcee Hastings walked into the main dining room at the Fontainebleau.
About three weeks later, the FBI taped this telephone conversation between Borders and Hastings:
Borders: Yes, my brother.
Hastings: Yes, my man.
Borders: Um hum.
Hastings: I`ve drafted all those, ah, ah, letters, ah, for him . . .
Borders: Um hum.
Hastings: . . . and everything`s okay. The only thing I was concerned with was, did you hear if, ah, hear from him after we talked?
Borders: Yeah.
Hastings: Oh. Okay.
Borders: Uh huh.
Hastings: All right, then.
Borders: See, I had, I talked to him and he, he wrote some things down for me.
Hastings: I understand.
Borders: And then I was supposed to go back and get some more things.
Hastings: All right. I understand. Well then, there`s no great big problem at all. I`ll, I`ll see to it that, ah, I communicate with him. I`ll send the stuff off to Columbia in the morning.
FBI`s interpretation
The FBI`s interpretation of that conversation?
Hastings and Borders were talking in code about the bribe. Borders was telling Hastings he had some of the money-a $25,000 down payment made by Rico- and planned to get the balance later. (”And then I was supposed to go back and get some more things.”)
Hastings, in turn, was telling Borders he had done the necessary paperwork (”all those ah, ah, letters”) to get the property returned to the Romano brothers. (”I`ll send the stuff off to Columbia in the morning.”)
Four days after the phone conversation, William Borders was to be honored at a testimonial banquet in Washington. Borders had not only been president of the National Bar Association, a predominantly black organization; he had been a fundraiser for President Jimmy Carter and was known to have close ties with both Carter and U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell.
Attorneys from all over the country arrived in Washington for the banquet at the L`Enfante Plaza Hotel. The day of the banquet, Borders drove to the airport to pick up a friend who had flown in from Miami for the event: Judge Alcee Hastings.
After arriving at the hotel, the two men parted company. Hastings had lunch in his hotel room, then drinks with a friend in the hotel lounge. Borders kept an appointment with Frank Rico, and the remaining $125,000 in bribe money.
The two men met at Rico`s hotel. ”I want to take a ride,” said Borders. When the two men got into Borders` car, the $125,000 in a bag between them on the seat, other FBI agents closed in.
”We`re busted,” said Borders.
”I`m afraid so,” responded Rico.
Soon afterward, Hastings was told by another attorney that Borders had been arrested, that the charge involved bribery in Hastings` own courtroom, and that the FBI wanted to talk to Hastings.
Judge Hastings was dumbstruck. For a moment, he acted like someone who didn`t know which way to turn.
Then he went to his room and packed.
Within an hour, he was on his way home, leaving through Baltimore and flying to Ft. Lauderdale, although his car was parked at the Miami airport.
Ever since that day more than seven years ago, when Borders was arrested, U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings has been a man under siege.
There will be a bitter circularity in Alcee Hastings` life if he loses his job as a federal judge because of his association with William Borders.
Help from Borders
It was Hastings` association with Borders that helped him become a federal judge.
Borders is credited with influencing Jimmy Carter to appoint several black judges, including Hastings.
Hastings says Borders has been a professional acquaintance for about 20 years. They were never close, says Hastings. He always found Borders baffling. ”With Bill Borders”-Hastings shakes his head and chuckles in the manner of somebody remembering an old pal with a lot of idiosyncrasies-”you never knew what he was saying. There`d be these long pauses. You`d just sort of wait to figure out what was on his mind. He had a way of coming and going, and he might be at a party for an hour and not say one word. That`s just the way that he was. Basically he was one of the strangest guys I ever knew.”
Borders himself has never said a word, in or out of the courtroom, about whether Hastings conspired with him.
”Bill Borders is the only man I know who has not only invoked the Fifth Amendment but also the sixth, seventh, eighth, fourth, eleventh and sixteenth,” says Hastings.
Hastings has maintained all along that Borders was running the bribery scheme alone-a ”rainmaking” scam, in which an attorney pretends to his client to have an ”in” with a judge, and takes credit and money for something over which he actually has no control.
One of Hastings` attorneys, Terry Anderson, offers this explanation for Borders` continuing silence: Borders may have done similar ”rainmaking”
scams at other times, with other judges-and with other criminal defendants, who might not be happy to find out that they had been taken in by an attorney who convinced them he had more influence over a judge than he actually did.
Fears for life
Anderson thinks, quite simply, that Bill Borders is keeping quiet because he fears for his life.
So what was Alcee Hastings doing having dinner at the Fontainebleau Hotel at 8 p.m. on Sept. 16, 1981-just as William Borders had predicted to his partner in bribery, Paul Rico?
Hastings` answer: Borders asked to meet him there for dinner and never showed up. Hastings, who arrived with a companion, stayed for dinner. He says he assumed the enigmatic Borders had simply forgotten their dinner date.
And the cryptic phone conversation? Hastings says he and Borders were talking about a mutual friend, Hemphill Pride, a Columbia, S.C., attorney who was facing disbarment.
Hastings had decided to embark on a letter-writing campaign to drum up support for Pride, and was sending Pride a copy of the letter. Hastings later produced the letters, handwritten on legal pads.
But Pride testified that he knew nothing of the letter-writing campaign, and the prosecutor argued that Hastings had faked the letters after the fact. And why, if the letters were authentic, were they never mailed? Hastings` explanation: He decided after writing them that sending the letters wouldn`t be an ethical thing for him, as a judge, to do.
