Source: www.usdoj.gov\opa\pr\1996\Jun96\298.crm.htm

MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1996

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE ROBERT P. AGUILAR RESIGNS

SAN JOSE, CA -- The Department of Justice announced today that Robert P. Aguilar has agreed to resign immediately from his office as a Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, in return for which the Department of Justice will move to dismiss the single felony count still pending against Judge Aguilar.

The charge to be dismissed under the agreement alleges a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2232(c), which forbids any person with knowledge that a wiretap authorization has been applied for or granted to divulge that knowledge with the purpose of impeding the interception of communications. As a part of the agreement, Judge Aguilar admitted that on August 9, 1987, he was informed by Robert Peckham, then Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, that the name Abraham Chapman had come up in connection with a wiretap application. In the agreement, Judge Aguilar further admitted that on February 6, 1988, he told his nephew that Abraham Chapman had been overheard on a wiretap, and that later that day, his nephew passed that information on to Abraham Chapman.

The parties reached this agreement in order to avoid further litigation and to avoid the possibility of a third trial in this matter. The first two trials were held in 1990. Since that time, several obstacles have arisen which would make a third trial of Judge Aguilar extremely difficult to prosecute; these obstacles include the fact that two important witnesses who previously testified for the United States are now deceased. Because of the difficulties posed by a third trial, the Department of Justice determined that the interests of justice would best be served by the agreement to dismiss the remaining count against Judge Aguilar in exchange for his immediate removal from the federal bench.

Judge Aguilar was indicted by a grand jury in the Northern District of California on June 13, 1989. The indictment alleged eight felony counts, including a charge in Count 6 that he had unlawfully disclosed the existence of a wiretap, and a charge in Count 8 that he had obstructed justice by providing false information to the FBI in connection with a grand jury investigation.

On March 19, 1990, a jury acquitted Judge Aguilar on one count, and deadlocked on the remaining counts. The Court thereafter granted the government's unopposed motion to dismiss two counts. In August 1990, Judge Aguilar was retried, and was convicted by a jury on Count 6 (disclosure of the wiretap) and Count 8 (obstruction of justice). He was acquitted of the three remaining counts.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed Judge Aguilar's wiretap disclosure and obstruction of justice convictions. The United States Supreme Court overturned the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the wiretap disclosure conviction, and affirmed the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the conviction for obstruction of justice. Having reinstated the wiretap disclosure conviction, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit for further proceedings. On remand, the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, again reversed defendant's conviction under Count 6 based upon an improper jury instruction.

The United States has until June 24, 1996, to file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court for review of the Ninth Circuit's decision. ### 96-298