DATE: Tuesday, July 1, 1997                 TAG: 9707010282

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   54 lines

EX-CON PLEADS GUILTY IN PLOT ON JUDGE COURT DOCUMENT SAYS THE PLAN WAS TO GET THE JURIST OFF THE HIRSCHFELD CASE.

A former employee of fugitive lawyer Richard Hirschfeld pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to force a local judge off Hirschfeld's case.

Joseph Matthew Gaffney II, 52, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice in a byzantine plot laid out in a court document filed with his plea.

According to the document, the balding and bearded Gaffney met Hirschfeld in 1993 when the two were locked up together in the federal prison in Petersburg.

Hirschfeld - fighting to appeal his tax fraud conviction and frustrated by the unfavorable rulings of U.S. District Court Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. - plotted with Gaffney in 1993 to hire a third inmate to throw acid in Clarke's face or else break his legs, according to the document.

The assault, however, was not really supposed to happen. Gaffney and Hirschfeld purposely chose an inmate known to be a snitch who was certain to reveal the plan to authorities, the document says.

``Hirschfeld intended this to cause, and believed it would cause, Judge Clarke to recuse himself from further participation in Hirschfeld's case,'' the document states.

It didn't work.

By 1995, Clarke was still on the case. Hirschfeld was in a federal halfway house and had purchased a temporary labor service company. Gaffney, also out of prison by then, was his employee.

Still anxious for Clarke to be removed from his case, Hirschfeld filed various court motions. Included in one such motion was an affidavit signed by Gaffney.

According to the documents filed with Gaffney's plea, the affidavit was false. It indicated that Hirschfeld had been ignorant of the plot against Clarke and had only just learned he was a suspect at the time he filed the motion.

Hirschfeld used the affidavit in an effort to have Clarke removed from the case.

Why did Gaffney do these things for Hirschfeld?

``There's no good explanation for that,'' said Gaffney's attorney, Jon Babineau.

``They were friends. At least Matt thought they were friends.''

Currently, Hirschfeld is living in Spain, fighting extradition on fraud charges in an alleged scheme to obtain early parole from prison. The Spanish high court has asked the United States to produce all its charges against Hirschfeld, Babineau said.

With the help of information from Gaffney, prosecutors may seek more indictments.

``I think they'll indict him on everything they have,'' said Babineau.

David Barger, the prosecutor in the case, was more reticent.

``All I can say is the investigation is continuing,'' he said.

Gaffney, who faces up to five years in prison, will be sentenced Oct. 9.

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