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.
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