Judge tells panel he didn't plagiarize paper

Gregory Holder and his secretary testify before a judicial committee regarding a 1998 research report.

By JENNIFER LIBERTO
Published June 10, 2005

TAMPA - Hillsborough Circuit Judge Gregory Holder told a state judicial panel on Thursday about his other lives: the doting father, the Boy Scout sponsor and the West Point graduate who once turned in another student for cheating.

Holder got his first chance to speak before the Judicial Qualifications Committee, which is considering whether he plagiarized a 1998 research report.

When asked if he had written the research report, allegedly submitted for a seminar Holder was taking at MacDill Air Force Base, the judge replied: "No sir, I absolutely did not."

Holder spent two of the three hours explaining his background, family and history. A retired U.S. Air Force Reserves colonel, he answered three hours of questions with a deep, steady voice.

If the committee decides Holder plagiarized the report, he could lose his job.

The last third of Holder's testimony focused on the process of writing his research paper through a busy December 1997 and early January 1998.

Both he and his judicial secretary, Lorraine Nasco, said Holder's original report resulted from a back-and-forth process. Holder dictated or hand-wrote sections, which Nasco typed out. Nasco passed completed parts to Holder, who marked them for corrections.

Nasco said that during the process, she consulted a copy of research written in 1996 by Pentagon attorney E. David Hoard to figure out how to format Holder's paper. The military has strict guidelines on things like margins and spacing.

"The paper I was typing was history, and history is not my favorite topic," said Nasco, who said she never read the research paper from beginning to end once it was completed.

Nasco also denied that she typed the research paper that has been submitted as evidence against Holder. That paper contains plagiarized parts from Hoard's paper, and Nasco called it sloppy.

Also on Thursday, U.S. District Judge James Moody, a longtime friend of Holder's, took a break from his federal terrorism trial to testify about Holder's reputation and character.

"He's known as a black and white type of guy," Moody said. "It's either right or wrong, and there is no in between."

The hearing continues next week, and Holder will be cross-examined Monday.

[Last modified June 10, 2005, 01:10:11]