Judge Carter Reportedly Aided Ex-Client in Drug Case

Harbor Municipal Court Judge Brian R. Carter, who is being investigated by the state Commission on Judicial Performance, intervened personally to get a friend and former client out of the Newport Beach Jail after a drug arrest last year, The Times has learned.

In doing so, he first reduced the man’s bail himself, then asked another judge to order the man released without bail, on his own recognizance.

Jeffrey John Harbison, 36, called Carter at home after midnight on April 19, 1987, following his arrest on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale, possession of a concealed weapon, reckless driving and carrying a switch-blade knife. He asked Carter to get him out “as quickly as possible,” according to a transcript of the conversation.

Carter told him that he would get him an attorney to handle the matter the next day.

In a subsequent telephone conversation, however, Carter told Harbison that he in fact called Harbor Court Municipal Judge Selim S. Franklin in an attempt to get him released, personally ordered Harbison’s bail reduced and tried unsuccessfully to have bail posted, sources said.

Carter said Thursday he could not comment on the circumstances of Harbison’s release from custody on Easter Sunday, 1987, because the felony charges against him are still pending. But Carter said he saw nothing wrong with his dealings with Harbison, a one-time golfing partner he represented in 1979 and 1980 as a private lawyer before being appointed to the Municipal Court.

Carter, 62, and another Harbor Municipal judge, Calvin P. Schmidt, 59, are being investigated by the state Commission on Judicial Performance. Sources have said the investigation centers on alleged offers of lenient treatment to prostitutes in exchange for sex and the showing of favoritism toward other women with whom they had personal relationships.

The commission is also looking into allegations of favoritism involving Harbison and his fiancee, Susan Marsha Edwards, also known as Susan Hiss, sources said.

A judge’s participation in any proceeding involving a client from a past law practice is subject to question, said Keith Wisot, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge and chairman of the ethics committee of the California Judges Assn.

Citing state judicial canons, Wisot said a judge should not handle any proceeding--including a bail bond reduction--involving anyone he or she represented as a private lawyer within the preceding 2 years. And, Wisot said, judicial canons prohibit judges from handling any cases involving family or social contacts.

Harbison, interviewed Thursday by telephone, said Carter had once been his attorney on some traffic matters, and that they later became “golfing buddies.” Harbison said their friendship has continued since Carter’s appointment to the bench in 1982, but that he has not seen Carter face to face since before his April 18, 1987, arrest.

Said Carter: “Most of my colleagues who have reviewed my relationship with Harbison fail to find anything improper in any of my relationships with Harbison.”

However, in his conversation with Harbison the day he was released from jail, Carter said that it would be highly unethical for him to order Harbison’s release personally and that he would have to get another judge to do it, sources said.

Court records show that Harbison was released on his own recognizance on an order issued by Carter, but Judge Franklin said Thursday that the records are wrong.

Franklin said that he had been the on-call judge, making decisions on bail amounts and releases without bail, on the weekend that Harbison was arrested, and that Carter phoned him about the case on Easter Sunday.

He said Carter told him he had telephoned jail officials and had ordered Harbison’s bail reduced from $25,000 to $5,000.

Franklin said that his conversation with Carter was interrupted and that Carter called him back 10 minutes later and said: “ ‘You won’t believe this, but Harbison is out on his own recognizance.’ ”

Mistaken Records Alleged

Apparently, Franklin said, detention-release officials had mistakenly written in their records that Carter had ordered Harbison released on his own recognizance when in fact Carter had only ordered the bail reduced.

Franklin said he called the Newport Beach Police Department’s watch commander and was told police had no objection to releasing Harbison on his own recognizance.

At that point, Franklin said, he issued an order in his own name freeing Harbison without bail.

Harbison’s call to Carter from the jail was made on a phone on which all conversations are taped. It was made at 1:42 a.m. on April 19, 1987, shortly after Harbison’s arrest.

Transcript of Phone Call

Here is what was said, according to a transcript:

“Hello, Marty (unidentified on the transcript), this is Jeff. It’s very important. It’s an emergency. Can I speak to Brian please.”

“Hello, Brian. It’s Jeffrey.”

“Yes.”

“A quarter of a gram in my pants. They’re holding me for $25,000 for possession for sale. I’ve been here for 2 hours. Can, can I get out of here as quickly as possible? Happy Easter.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll have to wait until morning now. Where are you now?”

“Oh, Brian, please, please, I’m in Newport. I’ve been here . . . Please. I beg of you.”

“OK. Well, I can’t do anything before daylight. Gonna have to get, I mean, I’ll have to get an attorney. I’ll get in touch with an attorney first thing in the morning. I don’t think they’re gonna (tape garbled) you.”

“Yes, they are Brian. You don’t understand, please.

“I’ll, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Brian, please.”

“OK.”

“Please.”

“See what I can do. OK, Jeff?”

“Easter, OK.”

Allegation About Women

Harbison, according to sources, became upset with Carter when he was not immediately released and, in an effort to get out of jail, told law enforcement agents that he had in the past provided women for Carter and mentioned one by name.

Harbison now denies that.

“Carter doesn’t need me to get women for him. He can get his own,” Harbison said Thursday.

Carter reacted with anger to Harbison’s comments about women.

“That’s obviously a disdainful, smart comment on his part,” Carter said. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Carter added that he could not comment further about anything regarding Harbison because of Harbison’s pending criminal case.

“A judge just can’t talk about that,” Carter said.

‘Get Carter Through Me’

Harbison contended that Newport Beach police have been harassing him for years in a bid to “get Carter through me.”

“The judge has never once done anything on my behalf,” Harbison said.

Harbison, who describes himself as a commodities trader in gold and silver, said he has never asked any favors of Carter but did admit calling him from the Newport Beach Jail to see if he knew anyone who could help get him released.

Though Harbison denies it, sources familiar with the investigation told The Times that he allowed county district attorney’s investigators to tape a conversation with Carter on Easter Sunday.

During that conversation, Carter told Harbison that he had tried to call K. Vinnie Saint John to bail him out, sources said.

Saint John is now a prosecution witness against Robert (Fat Bobby) Paduano, a reputed organized crime figure who is accused of breaking into Saint John’s home in a dispute over control of drug trafficking in Newport Beach.

Paduano Faces 71 Charges

Paduano is accused of robbing several county drug dealers in attempts to force them to help him expand his own drug operation. He faces 71 charges of robbery, burglary and extortion.

Saint John was robbed at gunpoint in his Newport Beach home on Oct. 31, 1986.

In his testimony before the grand jury investigating the Paduano case, Saint John denied that he was a drug dealer.

But he said Paduano told him that he knew he would have to deal with Saint John if he wanted to move in on the drug scene in Newport Beach.

Saint John told the grand jurors that he was in the banking and finance business and that he owned a consulting firm for Federal Reserve banks in Washington.

“They get me clients that are ailing banks,” he said.

Harbison is currently awaiting trial in Superior Court on felony drug charges.

3 Other Judges Scrutinized

In addition to the investigations of Carter and Schmidt, sources said, the Commission on Judicial Performance is reviewing allegations against three other judges in Harbor Municipal Court, which serves the communities of Newport Beach, Irvine and Costa Mesa. Among the allegations:

- That Franklin and Judge Russell A. Bostrom called a meeting with Newport Beach officials last year at which they exerted pressure on the officials to halt a police investigation of Carter and Schmidt.

- That Judge Susanne S. Shaw improperly endorsed a political candidate and made remarks from the bench that offended Latino defendants.

The commission, which operates in almost total secrecy, investigates charges of misconduct by judges and is empowered to recommend to the state Supreme Court that a judge be censured or removed from office.