By BILL POOVEY
Associated Press
January 04, 2008 10:47 am
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A hearing in which several news organizations are trying to compel police to turn over a recording of what a former judge called his “graphic fantasies” ended Thursday without a ruling.
Chancery Court Judge Frank Brown III said he would make a decision “in due course” on whether the tape should be released.
Circuit Judge John B. Hagler resigned last month after he was confronted about the tape by the district attorney from his Tennessee district, Steve Bebb, and The Chattanooga Times Free Press, which learned about it from an unidentified source.
The tape was briefly examined by Chattanooga police and the FBI in late 2005 after a secretary who had just been fired by Hagler turned it over, authorities said. She told them she found the recording of the judge’s voice on a tape that also contained legal dictation.
During the past two years, Hagler remained on the bench, hearing mostly family court cases like divorces and child custody.
Hagler is fighting a request by the Times Free Press, The Associated Press and other news organizations that the tape be released.
Authorities have said when they first heard the tape, they thought they were listening to a torture session. Police said they initially thought the tape might be linked to the unsolved 1997 shooting death of an Episcopal priest, the Rev. Charles Martin “Marty” Davis, 35. But police have said Hagler is not a suspect in any investigation.
Hagler, who served three terms as president of the Tennessee Trial Judges Association, has refused to say what is on the tape other than to acknowledge it contains “graphic fantasies.”
He contends the leak to the media about the tape should be investigated, saying the judiciary “has been the victim of a retaliatory attack.”
Members of the local bar have asked federal prosecutors to investigate how the existence of the tape became public. Police said FBI agents are asking them questions about the leak.
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