By Dean Poling
A former Alapaha Circuit judge pleaded to a count of fraud Friday morning in a federal court in Macon.
Former Alapaha Circuit Judge Brooks E. Blitch III pleaded guilty to one count of honest services fraud conspiracy, according to the office of Acting U.S. Middle District of Georgia Attorney G.F. “Pete” Peterman III.
Blitch will be sentenced at a later date, anywhere from 60-90 days, said Sue McKinney, a U.S. Attorney’s office spokesperson. Blitch is not expected to serve any jail time.
A federal honest services fraud conspiracy conviction has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, three years supervised release, and a mandatory assessment of $100.
Having entered a plea agreement, Blitch is expected to receive probation and a fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. A pre-sentence review will determine the length of probation and the fine amount.
“The agreement will not be final until approved by the court,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Blitch pleaded to count No. 9 from a litany of federal indictments issued last year against the 74-year-old former judge. This count alleged that people paid a Berrien County man money and gave him other considerations in exchange for introducing them to Blitch; these people were reportedly seeking inappropriate judicial assistance in ex parte meetings with the judge, according to past court records.
For Blitch’s plea, the U.S. Attorney’s office is expected to drop the other indictments. These indictments included charges ranging from fixing cases to making illegal payments to courthouse employees, according to court documents.
“Judge Blitch never took a dime,” said Robert S. Willis, Blitch’s defense attorney with the Jacksonville, Fla., law firm of Willis, Ferebee and Hutton. “He did nothing improper at all, other than meet with ordinary folks.”
The acting U.S. attorney disagreed.
“The essence of the honest services fraud charge was that the defendant allowed his judicial decisions to be manipulated by outside influences from improper sources, such as the requests of particular individuals who had his ear regarding special treatment for some of those who appeared or had cases before him,” Peterman said in a release.
During Friday morning’s court appearance, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Georgia Hugh Lawson questioned the government’s case, according to court officials. He reportedly wondered why the prosecution settled for a plea after four years of intensive federal investigation.
The Blitch investigation has affected the lives of numerous Alapaha Circuit officials and residents during the past several years. The probe into Blitch indirectly led to a sheriff, a court clerk, and a Clinch County state/juvenile court judge pleading guilty to federal charges. Yet, it also led to indictments against other officials and individuals who were eventually acquitted or had their charges dismissed.
Blitch served as a judge for nearly three decades in the Alapaha Judicial Circuit of Clinch, Lanier, Berrien, Cook and Atkinson counties.
He is part of a South Georgia political dynasty stretching back decades. His mother, Iris Faircloth Blitch, served as a Georgia legislator in both the General Assembly’s House and Senate in the 1940s and ’50s. She also served as a Georgia representative in Congress from the mid 1950s through early 1960s. The judge’s wife, Peg Blitch, served as a state senator throughout the 1990s until 2004.
The federal investigation led to the Judicial Qualifications Commission filing ethics complaints against Blitch. The ethics complaints were dropped in 2008 when Blitch resigned after 28 years as judge.
Feds then indicted Blitch alongside his former law partner, Homerville attorney Berrien Sutton, who resigned as a state court judge shortly before the indictments. Sutton pleaded guilty to one count of honest services fraud conspiracy earlier this year.
After Friday’s plea, Peterman said, “Our goal throughout this and related prosecutions has been to ensure that judicial and law-enforcement decisions made in the Alapaha Judicial Circuit are properly based on the dictates of the law and basic fairness, in an open and public proceeding, rather than through favoritism and improper influence in private chambers.”
Blitch had been scheduled for trial this summer, but the courts postponed the trial after Blitch suffered a burst appendix in the spring.
