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TAMPA - When Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder was accused of plagiarism, it appeared the computer files that could prove his innocence - or guilt - had vanished.
The Judicial Qualifications Commission has accused Holder, an Air Force reservist, of submitting a plagiarized research paper in 1998 to the Air Force Air War College.
His defense: the cribbed paper is not the one he actually submitted, but a fake planted by enemies to discredit him.
Holder has never been able, however, to produce the research paper he says he did write and submit to the college, one he says his former judicial assistant, Lorraine Nasco, typed for him on a courthouse computer. The computer file had somehow been erased.
But a search of backup files on Nasco's courthouse computer has produced a startling result:
A word-for-word copy of an Air War College paper written by E. David Hoard, the very paper Holder is accused of cribbing. Single-spaced and 17 pages long, it concerns the Anglo-American bombing campaign in World War II.
Holder's lawyers say they are unable to explain how it got on his assistant's computer.
"We find this paper and the circumstances surrounding it suspicious, to say the least," said David Weinstein, one of Holder's lawyers.
Nasco has said under oath that the 17-page paper found on her computer is not the one she typed up for the judge. "I would not have typed a document of this length in single-space," she said. She added the table of contents differs from the one she typed.
The computer files came to light Thursday via a public records request of the Hillsborough Courthouse.
Chief Judge Manuel Menendez Jr. forwarded the computer records to the JQC in July, prompted by a JQC request to search court computers for all documents containing words that might have appeared in Holder's paper, such as "Anglo" and "bomber."
Computer records show the 17-page paper was last accessed on Dec. 5, 1997. Holder's lawyers say the judge was out of town, on Air Force duty, at the time.
Holder has acknowledged he possessed a copy of Hoard's research paper when he was preparing his own paper, for the purpose of copying the format. Hoard faxed it to him in September 1997.
Holder has never claimed that Hoard also e-mailed him a copy, which might have provided a possible explanation for its presence in the computer. So who typed it in?
"I'm confident that (Lorraine) Nasco never typed this paper," said Weinstein, the attorney.
How did it get there?
Weinstein pointed to Nasco's remark, in an affidavit, that there were security breaches with regard to courthouse computers. Weinstein declined to comment further.
The JQC, the state panel that oversees judges, declined to comment about the paper in the computer. The JQC has admitted it has no witnesses to authenticate the cribbed paper as the one Holder actually submitted to Air War College.
The Hoard paper found on the courthouse computer appears to be another example of the evidentiary stalemate in the case. The JQC cannot prove how it got there; Holder cannot prove it wasn't his doing.
"Judge Holder has been put in a position of proving a negative, years after the fact," Weinstein said. "That's unfair."
Holder's lawyers have asked the JQC to dismiss the charges against him. Last May, the U.S. Air Force suspended Holder as a judge advocate in the military court system amid the plagiarism allegations, but reinstated him in December.
Holder is a well-known whistleblower at the Hillsborough Courthouse who is responsible for seismic changes there, including the resignation of a number of powerful judges. His supporters say he is being set up.
- Christopher Goffard can be reached at 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com