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Ex-Traffic Court judge to plead in state sting

Thomasine Tynes' defense attorney says her cooperation with a grand jury merits a sentence of house arrest or probation.

PTYNES27D 68958 3/25/05 PHOTO BY ERIC MENCHER. In this photo: Judge Thomasine Tynes in the living room of her home. She is a Traffic Court judge who drives a Rolls Royce, has a license plate that says NOT GILT and years ago was accused by her former husband of trying to kill him - twice. Thomasine Tynes is a flamboyant woman who is not to be messed with. And she feels thoroughly messed with now. The senior judge on Traffic Court, Tynes says the state Supreme Court has done her wrong - undermined her powers as president judge of Traffic Court even before she got the title. (Governor Rendell is expected to name her president judge this week, but the Supreme Court already has appointed someone else as administrative judge.) Tynes, saying what is on her mind as always, accuses the Supreme Court of racism, of denying a black woman the right to the top job and the powers that go with it. In a long interview, she answers all questions on all subjects.
PTYNES27D 68958 3/25/05 PHOTO BY ERIC MENCHER. In this photo: Judge Thomasine Tynes in the living room of her home. She is a Traffic Court judge who drives a Rolls Royce, has a license plate that says NOT GILT and years ago was accused by her former husband of trying to kill him - twice. Thomasine Tynes is a flamboyant woman who is not to be messed with. And she feels thoroughly messed with now. The senior judge on Traffic Court, Tynes says the state Supreme Court has done her wrong - undermined her powers as president judge of Traffic Court even before she got the title. (Governor Rendell is expected to name her president judge this week, but the Supreme Court already has appointed someone else as administrative judge.) Tynes, saying what is on her mind as always, accuses the Supreme Court of racism, of denying a black woman the right to the top job and the powers that go with it. In a long interview, she answers all questions on all subjects.Read moreINQ MENCHER
    by VINNY VELLA
    Published 

AFTER MONTHS of legal wrangling, a former Traffic Court judge will plead guilty to a conflict-of-interest charge, her attorney said yesterday.

Thomasine Tynes, 71, was charged by a grand jury in October with criminal conspiracy, bribery and conflict of interest - all felonies - for her role in an aborted sting operation conducted by the state Attorney General's Office.

But in a federal court filing - made in an unrelated ticket-fixing case - Tynes' defense attorney, Louis Busico, requested a reduced sentence, pointing to her "very poor health" and cooperation with the District Attorney's Office in investigating the shuttered sting.

"A term of incarceration serves no legitimate purpose in this case," Busico wrote. "All of the sentencing factors . . . are more than adequately addressed by permitting this broken woman to serve her sentence on probation or house arrest."

Tynes was one of several local figures targeted by Tyson Ali, a confidential informant, in an undercover corruption probe that ran between 2010 and 2012 at the behest of then-state Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Ali, to whom Busico refers as a "con artist of the highest magnitude," gave Tynes a $2,000 sterling silver Tiffany & Co. charm bracelet in a bid for political favor.

Tynes' acceptance of that gift led to her indictment in the sting, which current Attorney General Kathleen Kane closed amid claims that it was racially motivated because all of its targets were African-American.

But District Attorney Seth Williams convened a grand jury in June to resume the investigation, leading to the charges filed against Tynes in October.

That investigation found "clear, convincing and compelling evidence" of political corruption on the part of Tynes, who served on the bench from 1989 to 2012, Williams said in announcing the charges.

During the grand-jury probe, Tynes "agreed to resolve this case short of trial" and to assist the investigation, Busico said in the filing.

To that end, the former judge gave investigators information about other politicians named in the sting - "valuable cooperation" that Busico said he anticipates will lead to more arrests.

That still leaves Tynes' other litigation, for which Busico filed his memorandum in the first place.

A jury acquitted Tynes of corruption and fraud in July in that ticket-fixing case, but convicted her of perjury when she was questioned by a grand jury more than a year ago.

She'll be sentenced in December in that case, court records show.