Extortion charges hit ex-judge
Journal Gazette, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
August 7, 2004
A former Schererville judge was indicted Friday on extortion charges alleging that she pocketed more than $30,000 in fees she ordered paid to a counseling service she owned.
The federal grand jury that indicted former Schererville tax court judge Deborah A. Riga said that her court dispensed fraud and extortion, rather than justice.
Hundreds of minor offenders who appeared in Riga's court to receive counseling for traffic and substance abuse violations were in fact being shaken down, U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen said Friday.
Bokkelen, Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter and Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter said a task force of state police and FBI agents discovered evidence Riga that pocketed more than $30,000 in traffic school and counseling fees.
She allegedly ordered the fees paid to a counseling service she owned, violating state law and canons of judicial ethics. A 20-page indictment alleges Riga also extorted $2,000 from Nancy Fromm, president of Addiction and Family Care.
Fromm told investigators Riga would have canceled Addiction and Family Care's lucrative contract to provide counseling to other town court defendants if she hadn't paid the bribes.
Also indicted Friday was James H. Fife, who faces four counts of tax fraud for hiding income that would have resulted in the payment of $325,000 in taxes. Van Bokkelen said Fife hid his income from East Chicago to avoid paying those taxes. His wife, Karen H. Krahn, has been indicted on two counts of tax fraud.
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