Organized-Crime Fighter Shifts To Bench -- Gene Wilson, U.S. Prosecutor, Will Become New Magistrate-Judge

They used to call him "Mr. RICO." Soon they'll be calling him "Judge."

Gene Wilson, who gained a national reputation for investigating and prosecuting the neo-Nazi group known as The Order, Pierce County corruption, Puyallup Indian leader Bob Satiacum and other high-profile cases, will undergo a judicial transformation next March.

That's when he'll assume his duties as a federal magistrate-judge. Wilson emerged from a field of 114 applicants for the prestigious, eight-year appointment that pays $115,000 annually.

Friends in the law-enforcement community dubbed him "Mr. RICO" - acronym for the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act that he's used like a hammer to smash various forms of organized crime.

Less well-known is the measure of equanimity, grace and dignity Wilson has lent the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle, where he has toiled for 15 years - the past nine as chief of the Criminal Division.

Despite his success as a prosecutor, at age 51, David Eugene Wilson - Gene to friends and associates - decided it was time for a career change. He saw the Seattle federal court's creation of a new magistrate-judge position as a one-shot opportunity he could not pass up.

Wilson will join three other full-time magistrate-judges to preside in misdemeanor criminal cases and assist district judges in the preliminary stages of felony cases, among a variety of other duties.

Wilson's gentle-but-firm courtroom demeanor is devoid of pretense. A well-earned reputation for extensive trial preparation has helped the government's causes before a multitude of jurors over the years. Known as a workhorse, he has been known to snack on peanut M&Ms for quick energy bursts during trial recesses.

The soft-spoken native of South Carolina has a residual drawl that becomes more pronounced when he relaxes. His daily routine includes an early-morning stop at the downtown YMCA, where he jogs on the indoor track and plays what he describes as a "mediocre" racquetball game.

An outdoors enthusiast who enjoys skiing, fishing and tending a vegetable garden, Wilson also is a voracious reader, especially of history and biographies. He drives to work in a 6-year-old Jeep, the same vehicle he uses to go pheasant hunting with Kate, a German wire-haired pointer.

The first member of his family to graduate from high school, Wilson worked his way through college and law school in a variety of jobs, including school-bus driver, dishwasher, waiter, police officer, ditch digger, steel construction-crew worker, salesman and tour guide.

The transition from executive-branch advocate to judicial-branch independent is one most believe Wilson will make gracefully.

Even so, some wonder if Wilson's heavily loaded past as a law-enforcement advocate - except for defending military personnel as an Army lawyer - won't affect his future.

Defense attorney Pete Mair, a former federal prosecutor who was a finalist for the job Wilson won, said he respects his competitor as "a fine gentleman and very tempered individual."

Still, he added, "Most people in the defense bar are concerned when someone has a career that seems to be a career prosecutor. . . . Also, if one's never been in private practice, you don't understand what an individual client goes through and how the system of justice is presented through their eyes."

Mair and defense attorney Kate Pflaumer also noted that Wilson has trained most assistants working for him. As those assistants come before him as a judge, those bonds could be a concern, some defense lawyers believe.

While Wilson acknowledges such perceptions as legitimate, he doesn't believe they will prove to be a problem.

"I don't think you have to be in private practice to understand the defense view," Wilson said. "The people I've defended I can assure you were as concerned about the outcome as the clients of attorneys who might have been in private practice."

As for possible prejudice, Wilson said his colleagues in the U.S. attorney's office are as fearful.

"I think that probably the people here (in the U.S. attorney's office) are more concerned that I may lean over backward to avoid any such perception than most of the defense bar is concerned about the opposite."

He said he can understand how some defense attorneys may be concerned about his background, but said, "I can only promise what I promised the court: that I'd work hard and try to be fair, and I'd hope they (the skeptics) would extend to me the presumption of innocence until I've had a chance to prove myself."

Chief Judge Barbara Rothstein acknowledges that Wilson's primarily prosecutorial background was "a consideration." In the end, however, the judges "felt very confident that Gene was the kind of person that once he was in a judicial role would be fair to both sides."

Federal public defender Tom Hillier said there's no "perfect background for a judge. I'm confident that Gene is competent to do the job, and I trust that when he takes the oath to do the job fairly that he will. Gene's remarkably levelheaded."

There is a well of sentiment and compassion beneath the surface. Mair recalled a time when he and Wilson were investigating the Pierce County rackets case. They contacted a man who had been beaten up and whose home had been firebombed.

The victim's singular joy, Mair recalled, was his love of playing classical piano, and his grand piano had been destroyed by the firebombing.

"I remember Gene actually weeping about this," Mair recalled. "It was sort of like the physical trauma was one thing, but when they went to take his soul, I guess it moved (Gene)."

Pflaumer, too, recalls an incident involving Wilson that she believes showed a yielding nature for a prosecutor.

One time when Wilson's wife could not attend an out-of-town judicial conference, Pflaumer accompanied him to dinner, she recalled.

"He did not even object," she said, "when I insisted on stealing the wine glasses from the Ritz Carlton, which I think shows a great flexibility for a law-and-order guy."