THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 21, 1996 TAG: 9608211002
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 133 lines
One year after taking office, Judge Robert E. Gillette is at the center of controversy for two threatening letters sent to a former law client who owed him money.
Gillette, 55, a judge in General District Court, has been investigated and cleared of misconduct by the state judicial board. Still, the lingering controversy raises two issues of public importance:
Did Gillette improperly threaten a former client with jail if the client did not sign a promissory note for $18,500 owed to the judge? A lawyer who now represents that client says it was extortion.
Did two state agencies properly investigate the charges against Gillette? One agency cleared Gillette after a brief study; the other agency did not investigate at all.
The controversy has been the talk of Suffolk since Sunday, when the Newport News Daily Press published a lengthy account.
Gillette has declined to comment. He refused to talk to the Daily Press and has not returned calls from The Virginian-Pilot.
At issue are two threatening letters sent by Gillette's office as Gillette was winding down his private law practice last year and becoming a judge.
Gillette is a former commonwealth's attorney and First Citizen of Suffolk. He was appointed to the judgeship by the General Assembly in February 1995. He took office in July 1995.
The two threatening letters were sent a few weeks after Gillette became a judge. They apparently were an effort to collect a debt owed to Gillette from his private law practice.
The former client, Benjamin J. Aston Jr., 43, is a bricklayer with a long history of minor brushes with the law, including several convictions for drunken driving and assault. He now lives in Elizabeth City and is working in Richmond, his lawyer said. Aston apparently owed Gillette $18,500 for defending him in those cases.
The controversy began in June 1995 - four months after Gillette was appointed judge, but one month before he took office.
At that time, Gillette represented Aston on a charge of driving without a license. Aston lost his license in 1989 after being declared a habitual offender. At trial, he was acquitted.
After the acquittal, Aston and Gillette returned to Gillette's office on Suffolk's Main Street and argued over Aston's debt. After some discussion, Gillette told Aston, ``Since you want to play hardball, I can put you in jail this morning,'' Aston told the Daily Press.
Aston said Gillette wrote a promissory note on a legal pad and told Aston to sign it or ``I'll take you back to court and you'll go to jail,'' the Daily Press reported. Aston signed it.
After the meeting, Aston said Gillette told him, ``Don't you forget, I still hold the keys to jail for you,'' the Daily Press reported.
About a month later, in July, after Gillette took office as judge, Aston received a letter from Gillette. It was on Gillette's private stationery, signed by Gillette, dated July 18.
In the letter, Gillette told Aston to sign a new, typed promissory note calling for payments of $200 a month for 15 years, including interest. That totaled $36,000. The old, handwritten promissory note did not include interest.
In the letter, Gillette threatened that if Aston did not sign the new note, Gillette would tell a judge and a prosecutor that Aston had lied about driving the car in the recent criminal trial. If convicted of perjury, Aston might have been sent to jail.
It is unclear how that letter was sent to Aston.
Gillette's former legal secretary, Lori Panther, told the Daily Press that Gillette dictated the letter to her sometime in June, before he became a judge, along with many other letters wrapping up his law practice. She said she did not get around to typing it until July 18, after Gillette had become a judge. She said Gillette sometimes dictated letters in anger, then did not send them.
Panther told the Daily Press that she left the unsigned letter near the door, but did not mail it. An investigator who worked with Gillette, Sam Coco, told the Daily Press that he signed the letter for Gillette, or stamped Gillette's name on it, then mailed it that night.
Coco told the newspaper that Gillette often wrote angry letters to people, carried them around in his jacket pocket, then threw them away.
Both Coco and Panther said Gillette was furious when he heard the threatening letter had been mailed, but both said that no one tried to retrieve the letter or tell Aston to ignore it.
A second letter repeating the threat was sent to Aston on Gillette's stationery, bearing Gillette's signature, on Aug. 8. That was one month after Gillette became a judge.
Panther told the Daily Press that she wrote, signed and mailed that second threatening letter without Gillette's knowledge or consent. She said she wrote many letters for Gillette threatening lawsuits against clients who did not pay debts.
Instead of signing the new promissory note, Aston complained. His new attorney, James W. Parker, a retired lawyer in Hampton, helped Aston file complaints with two state agencies.
One complaint went to the Virginia State Bar, which regulates lawyers. The bar did not investigate the Gillette complaint, ruling that Gillette is now a judge and therefore beyond the agency's reach.
This week, however, the bar's chief counsel, Michael L. Rigsby, said he may reopen the case. Usually, the bar cannot comment on a complaint or an investigation, even to confirm that one exists.
``All that I'm allowed to say at this point is that I'm reviewing the (Gillette) matter to determine if the bar should conduct an investigation,'' Rigsby said Tuesday from Richmond.
The second complaint went to the state Judicial Inquiry and Review Commission, which investigates judges. The commission conducts all its business in secret. By law, it cannot confirm or deny the existence of a complaint. All its actions are secret, unless it recommends that a judge be fired or disciplined. Only the Virginia Supreme Court can take that action. The commission has recommended only six cases to the Supreme Court in 25 years.
In the Gillette case, the commission's chief counsel, Reno S. Harp III, conducted a brief investigation and absolved Gillette in February.
Finally, the matter was sent to Suffolk Commonwealth's Attorney C. Phillips Ferguson.
Parker, the lawyer who represents Aston, says Gillette's letter may be considered extortion or mail fraud.
Under Virginia law, extortion is defined as threatening ``injury to the character, person or property of another person'' or accusing him of ``any offense'' to get ``money, property . . . or any note, bond, or other evidence of debt.''
On Monday, Ferguson said he sent the Gillette case to Williamsburg prosecutors because the letters were sent to Aston's post office box there.
On Tuesday, Williamsburg Commonwealth's Attorney George C. Fairbanks IV said he is not sure how to handle the case. He got it just last week.
``We're attempting to look into the matter,'' Fairbanks said. ``It's going to take months to sift through this. It's not something there's going to be any quick resolution to.''
Parker also said the FBI is investigating the matter. FBI spokesman Bo McFarland said Tuesday, ``I can't comment on whether we are or are not involved.''
Parker compared the Gillette case to that of former Norfolk Judge Joseph Campbell, who was prosecuted for altering a name on a traffic court docket to hide the fact that it involved a Virginia Beach prosecutor.
``This is much more serious than what (Campbell) did,'' Parker said Tuesday. ``I think we'll see something done. I'll be very surprised if Gillette slides on this thing.''
KEYWORDS: JUDGES SUFFOLK THREATS by CNB