Former judge admits extortion
Post-Tribune (IN)
June 10, 2006
Deborah Riga, the former Schererville Town Court judge, admitted Friday that she systematically defrauded the town during her time on the bench.
Riga pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to four of the eight counts in the federal indictment against her. She also agreed to cooperate with U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen's continuing public-corruption investigation.
A federal grand jury indicted Riga in August 2004. Her trial was scheduled to start Tuesday.
The U.S. attorney's office will ask the court to dismiss four other counts against Riga when she is sentenced Sept. 8 by Judge Philip Simon. Riga, who lives now in Sarasota, Fla., will remain free on bond until the sentencing.
Riga was judge of Schererville's town court -- which hears traffic offenses, minor drug and alcohol cases and small-claims cases -- from January 2000 to December 2003.
She admitted, in Friday's plea agreement, that she "devised a scheme to defraud the public and the Town of Schererville of their right to my honest services" when she was judge.
She said she took control of the court's Crossroads counseling program and driving school and set up a bank account in which she secretly had an interest.
Through that, she received about $12,000 in payments from the court's defendants. She also stopped paying rent to the town for her courtroom and made the town pay court employees who should have been paid out of the Crossroads program, Riga said.
Each mail-fraud charge carries a maximum term of 20 years, but the U.S. attorney agreed to a sentence "at the low end" of the sentence range.
Riga also is to make restitution to the town, but the agreement doesn't specify the amount. One count to be dismissed is a charge that Riga made Nancy Fromm -- whose Addiction and Family Care firm provided court-ordered counseling -- pay $2,000 to Riga's father to continue doing business.
Riga was in court Friday with her attorney, Alison Benjamin.
Assistant U.S. attorneys Orest Szewciw and Wayne Ault prosecuted the case.
The current Schererville Town Court judge, Kenneth Anderson, defeated Riga in a closely contested Democratic primary election in May 2003.
Riga originally was declared the winner by 11 votes, but that result was overturned when Anderson showed that 22 absentee votes were fraudulent.
Riga pleads guilty
SCHERERVILLE: Former town judge will probably face jail time
NWI Times
Jun 10, 2006
nwitimes.com/news/local/riga-pleads-guilty/article_b7577cfb-aee2-5fd3-afb2-d2f59833e413.html
Deborah Riga, who once presided over hundreds of small-time offenders as the judge of Schererville Town Court, is probably heading for jail herself.
On the eve of her public corruption trial next week, Riga pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to four counts of felony mail fraud.
Federal prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges against her two years ago, including one count of extortion, in exchange for her guilty plea and cooperation in future investigations.
"I'm saddened that it came to that, and that there was a problem in Schererville," said sitting Town Judge Kenneth Anderson, whose contested election victory over Riga in 2003 spurred the federal probe.
Federal and state investigators accused Riga of concealing profits she earned by sending criminal offenders in her court to two counseling services that she controlled. She pleaded guilty to sending notices through the mail to offenders in her programs.
Riga, 49, faces a maximum penalty of 80 years in prison and $1 million in fines, although her actual sentence will be decided through sentencing guidelines during a hearing in September.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw said her sentence will be adjusted downward based on how much she cooperates with investigators in future probes.
"It's just one part of what this office is about, in terms of fulfilling its obligation to root out political corruption," Szewciw said, adding that four agents from the FBI and state police worked "tirelessly" to assemble the case.
Riga's father, Anthony -- who was named as having taken part in the scheme but not charged with any crime -- declined to comment.
Riga's attorneys did not return calls Friday, and Riga herself could not be located for comment.
In 2000, Riga became the second person ever elected to Schererville's court, which was created in 1995 to handle low-level offenses like traffic violations and small drug charges.
Within two years of taking office, she had replaced the former businesses that provided driving education and youth addiction counseling services with businesses that she controlled.
Riga collected the profits from both businesses, had town employees work to staff the businesses, and stopped paying rent that the former services had paid, the indictment against her said.
The scheme eventually netted her more than $30,000 in profits, some of which was used for her re-election campaign in 2003 against Anderson, the indictment said.
When federal agents froze the account that contained the profits, only about $12,000 remained -- money that will be forfeited to the U.S. government, Szewciw said.
Riga will also be forced to pay restitution to Schererville for the lost rent her businesses did not pay to the town, which ranged from $150 to $250 per counseling session or class.
The scheme came to light during the 2003 Democratic primary, which Riga "won" by 11 votes until a Lake Superior judge threw out 23 fraudulent absentee ballots and gave Anderson the victory.
Anderson said a team of Democrats in the town, including Democratic Chairman and City Councilman Mike Troxell, worked hard to unseat Riga after her first term.
"I don't think any of us knew the level of the activity that was going on, but we knew the court was being administered poorly," Anderson said. "The people of Schererville should be happy to see that their elected officials saw that there was a problem in their own party, and worked to remove it."
