Law: The Trouble with Harry

A federal judge goes on trial in Nevada on bribery charges

Judge Harry Claiborne seemed at ease last week in Courtroom 2 of the gray marble federal courthouse in Reno. He leaned back in his chair, stroked a finger across his lips, and listened serenely to the testimony in a criminal trial. But Claiborne, 66, chief judge of Nevada’s U.S. District Court, was observing the proceedings from a new perspective. He was not the presiding judge, but the defendant, the second sitting federal judge in U.S. history to be tried for offenses allegedly committed while serving on the bench. The charges against Claiborne: taking bribes, obstructing justice and filing false income tax returns.

Claiborne’s defenders say that the judge is the target of a vendetta by federal authorities who are unhappy with some of his rulings. Among them: Claiborne’s occasional refusal to issue search warrants and his dismissal of several cases brought before him by the U.S. Government. Oscar Goodman, Claiborne’s chief counsel, says that the judge is a victim of the long-running feud between federal lawmen and the Nevada Establishment. Says he: “The feds have tried to create the picture that we’re all crooks and Mafia soldiers crawling around here.”

His opinion is shared by many local citizens. Asserts Hank Greenspun, the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun: “If you’re a Nevadan, you’re guilty until proved innocent.” Federal investigators adamantly defend their actions. Nevada, says retired FBI Agent Joseph Yablonsky, u who headed the Claiborne probe, has too long operated like “a foreign protectorate … We’ve had to plant the American flag in the desert.”

Federal law officials began concentrating on the state in the 1960s when an influx of Teamster money fueled an explosive growth in Las Vegas casinos and heightened the interest of organized crime in gambling. By the 1970s, the FBI, the IRS and the SEC had all launched investigations. The federal-local battle was joined in 1979 when U.S. agents began to track Claiborne.

Appointed to the bench in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, Claiborne had been a highly successful local criminal lawyer, numbering reputed Las Vegas mobsters among his satisfied clients. A twice-divorced bachelor with a taste for young women, Claiborne owned three cars and lived in a $250,000 home. From the start, he was not overly hospitable to federal outsiders. He once threatened to jail an IRS agent and an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and publicly assailed the Justice Department’s local Organized Crime Strike Force for going after “little fish.” When the agents went after Big Fish Claiborne, they looked into reports that he had once used a private detective to bug illegally the home of a former girlfriend, but a grand jury failed to indict the judge. “A bunch of crooks out to destroy Nevada,” said Claiborne of the investigators.

Enter Agent Yablonsky, now 55. Yablonsky immediately ruffled the local establishment with his aggressive style. He installed a hot line for Nevada residents reporting official corruption and pursued investigations that helped to indict reputed underworld figures involved in skimming profits at casinos. He also targeted Claiborne, reportedly telling acquaintances that he wanted the judge’s picture hanging on his wall. But the trophy stayed out of reach until the arrival of an unlikely ally: Nevada Brothel Operator Joseph Conforte, whom Claiborne had once successfully defended against a charge of white slavery.

Even in a state that has legalized sin, Conforte, 58, falls into a special category. He set up shop in the 1950s, building the Mustang Ranch outside Reno into Nevada’s biggest bordello. Over the years, Conforte has been linked to political payoffs, arson and murder. In the 1960s he served time for attempted extortion and tax evasion. In 1980 he faced five years in federal prison for a conviction in another tax case. He was also up on a state charge of bribery, and the local D.A. was talking about seeking a life sentence for Conforte as a habitual criminal. Conforte skipped to Brazil, but within months he was in touch with federal authorities.

Last week, testifying in a raspy Sicilian accent, Conforte said that in December 1978 he paid Claiborne $30,000 to help quash grand jury subpoenas for two of his prostitutes who had 5 been called as witnesses in a probe of voter fraud. Three months later, Conforte said, he again met with Claiborne, who suggested that he could get a federal appeals court to overturn Conforte’s tax conviction. Conforte testified that the judge told him, “We need $100,000 to get things started.” With that, Conforte produced $55,000 in bills and stuffed them in Claiborne’s pockets.

Claiborne denies all charges. His lawyers argue that the grand jury subpoenas were not quashed, and Conforte’s tax conviction was upheld. In cross-examination the defense attacked Conforte’s motives, pointing out that his prison sentence has been cut from five years to 15 months. Conforte admitted that his tax debt, estimated to be as high as $20 million, had been reduced to $7.3 million. Contends Chief Counsel Goodman: “It’s a tremendously weak and vindictive case.”

Not so, says the Government, which is prepared to call some 80 other witnesses. The prosecution has introduced evidence, including canceled checks, to show that the judge failed to declare part of his income. The unofficial line among Las Ve gas bookmakers makes Claiborne only a 7-to-5 underdog. Explains one bookie: “The evidence against him is strong. But Harry has an awful lot of friends in Nevada.”

—By Anastasia Toufexis. Reported by Richard Woodbury/Reno