It’s Not Only The Vegas Casinos Which Reap Financial Gain But Also The Courts
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By Janet Phelan
In 2006, the Los Angeles Times ran a series on judges in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Times found that Las Vegas judges were regularly influenced by monied parties and that there existed “an extensive pattern of financial and personal links among Las Vegas judges, lawyers and other players in the legal system that suggested improper influence on judicial decisions.”
Over ten years has passed since the Times’ series and it looks like little, if anything, has changed in Sin City. In fact, the scams used by judges to deny justice may have gotten closer to the chest and better protected.
On the heels of recent disclosures that Vegas judge Cynthia Giuliani had filed false financial disclosures in an apparent attempt to cover up the fact that she went bankrupt on the bench, a complaint has surfaced against Judge Giuliani, alleging considerable violations of procedure and litigant rights. Giuliani, as a family court judge, had presided over the divorce case filed by Candice Bock against her husband, Tim Bock.
Race, Connections or Simply Money?
Candice, who is African-American, has referred to the case as a psychological nightmare and has wondered if her race factored in. Certainly, litigants in family courts in multiple venues are experiencing similar judicial misbehavior. A recent article by Mike Volpe discussed a multiplicity of lawsuits filed in various states all alleging that family court judges engaged in “gaslighting.” Gaslighting, writes Mike Volpe, “is a form of mental abuse where information is twisted/spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception and sanity.”
When Tim and Candice married in 2000, she had been working at Tim’s company, Summit Portfolio Management, as an administrative assistant. At that time, the company, which went online in 1999 as a financial consulting operation, was pulling in about $120,000 a year. Candice continued to work at Summit after the two married and the company prospered, until it was doing at least a half million a year. In 2003, Candice gave birth to a son. She subsequently continued to work at Summit.
The marriage went sour and in 2011, Candice filed for divorce. Integral to her divorce case was documentation of alcohol abuse by her husband who was drinking then driving with their son in the car. Both parties made multiple accusations of spousal abuse, both physical and emotional.
The case ended up in front of Judge Cynthia Giuliani. A review of the records indicates that Giuliani did everything in her power to accommodate Tim Bock and to ignore the evidence that he lied to the court, repeatedly, concerning his financial affairs. Through her selective inattention to both evidence and law, Giuliani ensured that Candice Bock did not receive a fair and lawful settlement.
Judge Giuliani refused to admit Candice’s contributions to the business, and declared that Summit would be given to Tim in the divorce settlement. She also accepted fraudulent reports from Tim Bock and an ersatz (and unlicensed) accountant, Frank Firak, who testified that Tim owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the IRS and was also saddled with $700,000 debt to a client named Larry Bingham.
Checks which Candice produced which showed the Bingham debt to be $550,000 were ignored by the court. So were the tax transcripts showing a zero balance with the IRS. Candice was ordered to pay half the Bingham debt and half the (non existent) IRS debt. In fact, she was ordered to pay half the business debts while receiving none of the business assets.
Strangely, one of the checks from Bingham to Tim Bock was clearly not made out by Larry Bingham but instead by the recipient, Tim Bock. This raises disturbing questions about the loan entire.
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