Prosecutors Detail Alleged Manipulation in Garson Court

Prosecutors made a painstaking effort yesterday in drawing a portrait of what they called the inner workings of a conspiracy to manipulate Brooklyn divorce cases.

They said the scheme had a simple goal: steer cases to state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson.

"Everything has to be done discrete...you know the judge, the way he is," a former court clerk, Paul Sarnell, was heard saying on one of 40 secretly taped conversations played in court.

"He knows about it, but he doesn't want to know about it," Mr. Sarnell says.

Jurors heard the tapes at the bribery and conspiracy trial of Mr. Sarnell and the court officer, Louis Salerno. Judge Garson is not on trial but is charged with felony bribe receiving.

Prosecutors this week began focusing on the lower rungs of the alleged scheme and players that include a local electronics salesman who recruited divorce litigants and a matrimonial lawyer who eventually cooperated with prosecutors.

Many of the conversations sounded damaging. Mr. Sarnell, for instance, describes being blocked by a new computer case assignment system that is monitored.

"I'll have to ask somebody else if they can beat the code," he says.

But the tapes also contain many statements that seem like innuendo and may even undermine the prosecutors' case.

At one point, Mr. Sarnell says that the lawyer, Paul Siminovsky, should simply ask Judge Garson directly to take a case. Such a request is common, Mr. Sarnell says on the tape.

"All you have to do is...ask the judge if he'll do it," says Mr. Sarnell, who by then was retired.

A defense lawyer yesterday called Mr. Siminovsky an "agent provocateur." A lawyer for Mr. Sarnell said prosecutors are cherry-picking tapes that put the two defendants in the worst possible light.

If there was a conspiracy surrounding Judge Garson, it teemed with neuroses: The tapes show a web of odd relationships among men who veer from skittish to sycophantic.

Mr. Salerno, the court officer, sounds disturbed after one of Mr. Siminovsky's clients boasts around court about connections to the judge.

"A stupid guy can cause a lot of damage.... God knows if he's telling anybody else," Mr. Salerno says. "That guy is dangerous."

Mr. Salerno was speaking to Nissim Elmann, a Crown Heights electronics dealer. Mr. Salerno also warns Mr. Elmann not to call him in court.

Mr. Elmann has emerged as particularly mercurial character in the case. He pesters and coos, repeatedly stressing his honesty in an Israeli-inflected accent and then contradicting himself in his next breath.

"I inflated, inflated," Mr. Elmann confesses to Mr. Siminovsky in one conversation.

Many of the conversations involve the path of Monroe vs. Monroe, a fake case that investigators used to bait the alleged conspirators.

Mr. Siminovsky steadily nudges Messrs. Elmann and Sarnell to move the Monroe case to the judge. Prosecutors say that Judge Garson would give the lawyer advice and favorable treatment on pending cases in exchange for benefits such as free meals and a $250 box of cigars.

When the case finally reaches the judge, Mr. Elmann exclaims: "Ha. Ha. Ha.Who can get you Garson if not me?"

"You're the best," Mr. Siminovsky agrees.