Irish Judge convicted of defrauding pensioner
23 November 2012
A Dublin District Court Judge has been found guilty of conning a pensioner into leaving his estate to her family.

Back in 2009, when Heather Perrin was a solicitor, her family friend Thomas Davis asked her to draft his will. He generously included Perrin's children as beneficiaries to the tune of €2,000 apiece. But that didn't quite do it for Perrin, who added wording bequeathing her sprogs half of Davis' €1 million estate.

When Davis, who has not yet shuffled off this mortal coil, discovered the fraud and challenged Perrin, she said it was a typo and blamed her secretary. When that didn't wash she claimed Davis had instructed her to leave his fortune to her kids. And finally, in a last ditch effort, Perrin's counsel argued that no-one carrying out such a fraud would appoint themselves executor and their husband a witness, as Perrin had, because it would be too obvious. The jury nodded politely, before unanimously finding Perrin guilty. She will be sentenced next week.

And across the pond Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway is also in trouble. The Attorney's Office has issued a civil complaint against her alleging that she defrauded a bank in a bid to escape paying a large chunk of her mortgage.

Judges Perrin and Hathaway, extending handcuffs across the sea?

Hathaway has been accused of trying to dodge repaying $600,000 of ING Bank's charge on her $1.5 million pile by secretly transferring her second and third homes to her stepkids. That would have enabled her to cry poverty to the bank, which under US law was then compelled to allow her to sell her mansion and write off its outstanding debt. Then it was just a matter of her kids transferring back the houses, everyone finding out, the Chief Justice pronouncing it a "dreadful development" and politicians of all stripes baying for her judgely blood. Hathaway has not yet resigned.