Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Later the feds went looking for their money. Agents found $1,800 in the home of Circuit Judge Roy Gelber. They discovered $5,100 in a dresser drawer at the home of Circuit Judge Al Sepe. Another $14,000 turned up in County Judge Harvey Shenberg's bedroom. And at the law office of ex-judge David Goodhart, agents grabbed an envelope containing $3,500.

OK, imagine you're one of the lawyers for these guys. The first thing you say, with rigid indignation, is, "Hey, it's not against the law to carry cash!"

No, but here's the problem. Every printed currency has a unique serial number. No two are alike. Consequently, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to trace a certain $100 bill from the hands of an FBI man to the paws of a judge. Numbers don't lie. On April 2, the feds allegedly handed out a cash payoff to Judge Shenberg. At least $1,200 of those bills allegedly turned up in the raid on Judge Gelber's home. In legal vernacular, this is known as being in deep doo-doo.

If it wasn't marked money, he'd have a dozen passable alibis. The judge cashed some traveler's checks. Or he won the money in the lottery. Or better yet, he was on his way over to Camillus House to make a generous cash donation to the needy!

Not with marked money, he wasn't. Judge Gelber's attorney will be doing some fancy dancing on this one. Perhaps he could argue that Judge Shenberg secretly broke into Judge Gelber's house in the middle of the night and planted the cash. Or maybe Judge Gelber was conducting his own top-secret investigation of courthouse corruption, and had seized the Shenberg money as "evidence."

There's more out there, too—as much as $241,600 in payoffs, still unaccounted for. That's 2,416 $100 bills hidden in shoeboxes, sugar bowls, mattresses, kitty litters, you name it.

If you're one of the shmucks sitting on that dirty money, waiting for the FBI to crash down your door, you've got to be wondering two things. One, how could I have been so greedy? And two, when's the next flight to Nassau?

Court Broom menu includes well-fed judge February 16, 1992

The most disheartening revelation of Operation Court Broom is how cheaply some of our judges were bought.

Bribery usually means cash packed in a briefcase, wire transfers to a secret Nassau bank account, or a hidden interest in some juicy real estate deal. Those are the types of payoffs that crooked public officials customarily accept.

The last thing that comes to mind is squid. In this case, fried squid—which is served in fancy Italian restaurants under the deceptively lyrical alias of "calamari."

I know what you're thinking: How much corruption can you buy with a plate of squid? The answer: a whole judge, allegedly.

A federal grand jury has heard evidence that Dade Circuit Judge Al Sepe regularly feasted on calamari and other delicacies at a fancy restaurant called Buccione, in Coconut Grove. According to testimony the judge's lunch tabs were paid by a local lawyer named Arthur Massey, who was seldom in attendance to enjoy the squidfest.

However, Massey frequently appeared in Judge Sepe's courtroom because Sepe frequently gave him court-appointed cases. In fact, the judge assigned Massey to 42 criminal cases that brought the lawyer more than $57,000 in fees. Interestingly, during that same 18-month period, Massey allegedly picked up about $10,000 worth of lunch and dinner tabs for the judge.

Now indicted and suspended on other matters, the well-fed Sepe vehemently denies any wrongdoing at the Buccione bistro. He insists there was no squid pro quo.

Massey, who is under investigation, remains silent. Perhaps his lunch-time largess was heartfelt, and in no way meant as a kickback for receiving those 42 cases. Perhaps he bought fried squid for all his favorite judges, so they wouldn't have to order from the courthouse cafeteria.

Feeding Sepe might have been an act of pure charity. After all, poor Al was barely scraping by on his $90,399 judge's salary. A man's gotta eat, right?

Still, prosecutors suspect a bribe. If so, it's an ingenious scheme—slimy and pathetic, but ingenious. What better way to get rid of incriminating evidence than to eat it!

I'm not sure how Massey and Sepe would've worked out the specifics. Say the judge got a free meal for every armed-robbery case that he steered to Massey. What were the precise terms of the arrangement—did Sepe order only a la carte? Was wine included? And, most importantly, who left the tip?

The other Operation Court Broom crimes aren't nearly so complex, and the bribes not nearly so tasty. For instance, when Judge Roy Gelber assigned cases to a sleazoid lawyer buddy, the judge's kickback was a flat percentage of the fee—either one-fourth or one-third of the total, depending on how greedy Gelber was feeling that morning.