Judge pleads innocent to charges of fraud

The suspended Superior Court judge abandoned his re-election campaign.

HARRISBURG (AP) — Suspended Superior Court Judge Michael T. Joyce pleaded innocent Monday to federal charges of mail fraud and money laundering, but abandoned his re-election campaign and said he plans to retire when his term expires in January.

Joyce was suspended with pay by the state Supreme Court last week after a grand jury indicted him on allegations he bilked two insurance companies out of $440,000. He continues to receive his state salary of $165,342 a year plus benefits.

Joyce, 58, a Republican who served more than a decade as an Erie County judge before his election to the state appellate bench in 1997, vowed to mount “a vigorous legal defense” against the criminal charges.

“It has been my great honor and privilege to serve Erie County and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a judge for the past 22 years. It is with immense regret that in light of recent events and after numerous discussions with my family, friends, colleagues and party leaders, I have decided to withdraw my name from the retention ballot this November,” he said in a statement.

The judge did not attend the initial court hearing in Erie, but his lawyer, David Ridge, entered the plea before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter.

Joyce was required to post a $5,000 unsecured bond and to forfeit his passport as a condition of his release.

Joyce is the first Pennsylvania appellate judge to be charged with a crime — and the first to be suspended — in more than a decade, court officials said.

Until Monday, he was one of eight appellate judges seeking voter approval for an additional 10-year term in a yes-or-no “retention” vote this fall.

GOP statement

State Republican Party Chairman Robert A. Gleason Jr., who had previously withheld any public statement about the indictment, said Monday that Joyce’s decision was “the appropriate course of action at this time for the party, his colleagues, and our judicial candidates.”

The criminal case stems from an August 2001 traffic accident that Joyce said left him in such pain that he was unable to exercise or play golf for more than a year. Prosecutors say the judge’s car was rear-ended by another vehicle at about 5 mph, and that he faked his injuries to cash in on the insurance money.

The indictment says Joyce was playing 18-hole rounds on courses as far away as Jamaica, going scuba diving and in-line skating, and working out at a local gym. He used the insurance money to buy a motorcycle and make down payments on a house and plane, it said.

The mail fraud charges are the most serious, each carrying a maximum prison term of 20 years.