Judge/Barrister to stand trial for perjury having 'Lied to Avoid Speeding Tickets'
Former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld has been ordered to stand trial on 13 charges, accused of lying to avoid penalties for four traffic offences dating back to 1999, when he was still a judge.
Einfeld faces charges including perjury and perverting the cause of justice for allegedly making false statutory declarations and lying under oath.
The 69-year-old said other people - including a friend he knew was dead - were driving his car at the times of the traffic offences.
But deputy chief magistrate Helen Syme said there appeared to be a good prosecution case that he was driving or at least in the car.
The magistrate dismissed one charge but said she was satisfied there was enough evidence for a jury to convict him on the remaining 13 charges.
Einfeld showed no emotion as he was committed for trial and did not say anything to the awaiting media as he left the court.
He will go before the District Court in February.
Earlier today, Ms Syme also ordered 55-year-old Angela Liati to stand trial for allegedly making a false statement to protect Einfeld.
Liati said she was in Einfeld's car with the dead woman, Professor Teresa Brennan, when it was photographed speeding in Sydney last year, but the Professor had died three years earlier.
Marcus Einfeld was once a darling of Australian left-wing politics – a high-profile barrister and judge who campaigned for human rights and social justice. Now his career and reputation lie in tatters and he faces a possible jail sentence for perverting justice.
The cause of his spectacular downfall could hardly be more prosaic: a series of speeding fines that Mr Einfeld, 69, allegedly sought to avoid by claiming that friends were driving his car. One was said to be Theresa Brennan, an American professor killed in a hit-and-run accident in Florida – a fact of which the former judge was allegedly aware.
As Mr Einfeld was committed for trial by a Sydney court this week, a picture of his complicated personal life emerged. According to the prosecution, when his silver Lexus was snapped by a speed camera in an upmarket suburb in January 1996, he had just had lunch at a beachside restaurant with a former television journalist, Vivian Schenker, with whom he had a "close relationship" for 15 years.
He then collected his long-term partner, Sylvia Eisman, Ms Eisman's daughter, her mother and his own mother from an afternoon musical at a theatre.
Also present in court were Angela Liati, a former mistress of a multimillionaire used car salesman, who is facing charges herself, and Marie Cristos, who came along to watch. Ms Cristos, a prostitute who had an affair with Mr Einfeld's former solicitor, Michael Ryan, found documents relating to the case while rifling through his waste bin.
The raven-haired Ms Cristos, who entered court and announced, "I am the prostitute in the case", has promised to wear a new outfit for each day of the hearing. Her first ensemble included a striking Diane von Furstenberg dress. Ms Liati reportedly never met Mr Einfeld but allegedly fabricated a story of spending a day with Professor Brennan in order to add weight to Mr Einfeld's defence.
Ms Schenker originally backed Mr Einfeld's claim that he was driving his elderly mother's Toyota Corolla at the time of one of his speeding offences. When she was warned she could be prosecuted for lying to police, she changed her story and agreed to give evidence for the prosecution.
It is all worlds away from Mr Einfeld's dignified image as a lawyer and former president of Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. In that latter capacity, while chairing an inquiry 20 years ago, he famously wept as he heard evidence from an Aboriginal mother whose son was barred from using a rugby ball and given an old shoe as a substitute.
But according to the Australian media, Mr Einfeld's alleged efforts to evade the speeding fines – and avoid losing his licence – were not his only aberrations. It is claimed that he embellished his entry in the Australian edition of Who's Who and obtained two doctorates from dubious academic institutions in America.
He is now charged with 14 offences including perjury. Wayne Roser, for the prosecution, claimed Mr Einfeld was a habitual liar who engaged in "a systematic course of criminality" that included forging witnesses' signatures on statutory declarations. Mobile phone records allegedly show Mr Einfeld was in Sydney on a day he claimed to be out of town.
Yesterday, Ms Schenker described strolling on the beach with the former judge after their lunch. But she agreed with Mr Einfeld's barrister, Ian Barker, QC, that she had an "imperfect memory" of the day's events.
1 January 2008 14:18
High-profile Barrister 'lied to avoid speeding tickets'
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 12 December 2007
Gary Hughes
Friday, August 11, 2006 at 07:20am
With former Federal Court judge and respected barrister Marcus Einfeld giving yet another version of how his car came to be booked speeding – this time he says the person driving is alive and well and living in the US – we thought it worth looking at a case in which he was involved in 2004 that has haunting similarities with his current plight.
In the 2004 High Court case Mr Einfeld represented Karla Subramaniam, who worked for Sydney solicitor Leigh Johnson. Ms Johnson’s car was booked by a red light camera, although the photographs didn’t she who was driving.
Ms Subramaniam supplied a sworn statement that she had been driving the car, which Ms Johnson used to have the driving conviction overturned in the NSW District Court.
Not long afterwards detectives “wired up” a former colleague of Ms Subramaniam and recorded a conversation in which Ms Subramanian admitted that Ms Johnson had been driving the car. Both Ms Subramaniam and Ms Johnson were charged with two counts of perverting the course of justice.
The charges against Ms Johnson were dropped when the tape was ruled inadmissible as evidence. The first trial of Ms Subramaniam ended with a hung jury, but she was convicted at a second hearing. The case eventually went to the High Court, where Mr Einfeld successfully argued that his client had been unfit to stand trial because of her state of mind, and the conviction was quashed.
In the latest twist in the Einfeld saga, his lawyers say that the driver of his car at the time it was booked in January by a speed camera had been tracked down in the US. The woman was now considering whether to come forward at take responsibility.
Mr Einfeld had originally told a Sydney court that his friend Professor Teresa Brennan from the USA had been driving his car when it collected the $77 fine. He said she had since died in Florida.
But it was discovered that Professor Brennan had died three years earlier. You can read Gotcha’s recent posting on what happened here.
Mr Einfeld then said that it was another Professor Brennan who was driving, who had also since died. He has strenuously denied that he was driving.
The Daily Telegraph has reported today that Mr Einfeld was on the point of losing his licence through accumulated demerit points when his car was snapped speeding in January.
Judge/Barrister to stand trial for perjury having 'lied to avoid speeding tickets'
Monday, 21 January 2008
