Senate Finds Judge Guilty, Removes Him : Judiciary: Alcee Hastings defiantly denounces his conviction of conspiracy and lying and says he will run for governor of Florida.

WASHINGTON —  The Senate today convicted U.S. District Judge Alcee Hastings of conspiracy and lying, removing him from the bench and making him only the sixth federal official convicted of an impeachable crime.

The Senate voted 69 to 26, more than the two-thirds required, finding Hastings guilty of conspiring to get $150,000 from defendants in a trial in return for a lenient sentence. It also found the Florida judge guilty of four counts of making false statements.

A defiant Hastings immediately denounced the action and said he will run for governor of Florida.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), presiding over the Senate, intoned that “two-thirds of the Senate having found him guilty . . . (Hastings) will be and is hereby removed from office.”

The Senate by a 60-35 vote, short of the two-thirds needed, ruled Hastings innocent of having “undermined the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” and of having “betrayed the trust of the people of the United States.

By a 95-0 vote, the Senate also cleared Hastings of having leaked information from a wiretap that killed a federal investigation in Florida, and by 48 to 47 it cleared him of one charge of making a false statement.

Hastings, who was impeached by the House in August, 1988, automatically loses his judgeship and annual $89,500 salary.

Sitting in the chamber as senators voted, Hastings announced later that he will run for governor and bitterly denounced the Senate’s action.

“I called my momma,” Hastings said, leaving the chamber. “That is who you’re supposed to call when you leave the floor of anything. That is who helped me to get on the floor.

“I told her that the Senate had voted against me. Her reply was, ‘Keep your head up. I’m upbeat. Are we running?’ I said, ‘We are off and running.’ ”

Of the coming campaign, Hastings said, “I think not only can I be elected, I think I will, because I think Floridians are tired of ordinariness.”

In a prepared statement earlier, Hastings, Florida’s first black federal judge, said, “What the Senate has said is (that) a standard of almost-proven innuendo and inference is good enough to remove a judge or executive officer by way of impeachment.”

Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, also criticized the Senate action, saying, “A dangerous precedent has been set in which an individual, acquitted in a court trial, can subsequently be removed from federal office on basically the same charges through impeachment proceedings.”

The first article of impeachment charged that Hastings conspired with attorney William Borders to obtain $150,000 from defendants in a case over which Hastings presided. As part of the conspiracy, according to the charge, Hastings agreed to impose a sentence under which the defendants would not have to go to jail.

Hastings and Borders were tried separately on the conspiracy charge. Hastings was acquitted but Borders was convicted.