Ex-Goldmen CFO Gets 8 1/3-to-25 Years for Judge Murder Plot
New York, Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Stuart Winkler, a former top executive at A.S. Goldmen & Co., got the maximum prison term for hiring a hit man to kill the judge in his securities fraud case, a crime described by the judge who sentenced him today as an ``attack on the entire criminal justice system.''
Winkler, 48, of Marlboro, N.J., was sentenced to 8 1/3-to-25 years in prison by State Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman. He was convicted last month of conspiracy charges for soliciting jail inmate Carl Ligon to murder State Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder last June. Snyder was not harmed.
Winkler made an emotional plea for mercy, but Berkman was unmoved. The judge called Winkler ``a violent man.''
``He wasn't in control, and he was going to get it back by arranging the death of another human being,'' Berkman said.
Winkler was once the chief financial officer for the Goldmen brokerage, which went out of business in 1998 after authorities raided its offices. He was one of 33 Goldmen employees arrested on securities fraud charges in 1999.
Winkler was released from jail by Snyder a week after his July 1999 arrest. After he took a vacation to the Cayman Islands, Snyder altered his $1 million bail, landing him back in custody again last April.
Authorities say the return to jail convinced Winkler he couldn't get a fair trial and drove him to conspire with Ligon to kill Snyder. Ligon taped Winkler in two separate conversations in June and July 2000.
``Do it,'' Winkler told Ligon on the tape. ``It's a done deal.''
Winkler apologized to the court at his sentencing, and said death is a ``better alternative'' than a long prison sentence.
``I am someone in a dark tunnel with no light shining,'' he said, as his wife June wept. ``This ordeal has made me realize how one mistake can change not only my life, but the lives of those I love, forever.''
Jan/04/2001 12:14 ET
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