Federal Judge Harry Claiborne of Las Vegas...

Federal Judge Harry Claiborne of Las Vegas has filed an appeal in California of his conviction on tax charges, claiming again that Justice Department prosecutors acted illegally in pursuing him and that the presiding judge denied him fair trial. Claiborne is appealing his August convictions of filing false tax returns that hid $111,000 in income over two years. He was acquitted of filing a false judicial ethics report, and bribery charges were dropped after a first trial in Reno ended with a hung jury in April. In his appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, attorneys for Claiborne claim that brothel owner Joe Conforte was given an illegally reduced prison sentence in return for his testimony, which they say is false, that he paid $85,000 in bribes to Claiborne and that prosecutors acted illegally in getting the judge’s tax returns and other information.