It's not the lifestyle of a typical federal judge: Five or six vodka cocktails during lunch; gambling with borrowed money; bankruptcy under a phony name, and cash, trips or home repairs from lawyers and a bail bondsman with business before his court.

Witnesses in the congressional impeachment case against U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. paint a jarring portrait of the former Louisiana state judge who was appointed to the federal bench in 1994 by President Bill Clinton.

As Congress wrapped up several weeks of evidence-gathering hearings this week, legal experts who testified before a House task force suggested Porteous is a clear candidate to become just the eighth federal judge in U.S. history to be impeached and convicted by Congress. Lawmakers appear poised to take their advice and bring charges early next year, setting up a historic trial in the Senate.

"The fact is that we are discovering a pattern of misbehavior that occurred over such a long period of time that it's virtually unique in the annals of impeachment," Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina, told the House panel. "Just imagine what happens if you don't act here? What kind of precedent does that set?"

Porteous, who sits in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, so far has offered little in his defense. And while his defense attorney, Richard Westling, acknowledges that the evidence doesn't look good, he says the House has disregarded key facts and circumstances. Porteous may have made mistakes, Westling argues, but his transgressions don't warrant impeachment.

"The presentation before the task force has been one-sided and clearly aimed at moving forward toward eventual impeachment," Westling said in an interview. "We hope that senators will withhold judgment until we have been given a full and fair opportunity to confront the allegations in a Senate trial."

Westling has his work cut out for him.

In the opening hearing, House investigators said Porteous had racked up more than $150,000 in credit card debt by 2000, mostly for cash advances spent in casinos.

Two New Orleans attorneys who once worked with Porteous said they gave the judge at least $20,000 in cash gifts while he was a judge, including $2,000 stuffed in an envelope in 1999, just before Porteous decided a major civil case in their client's favor.

After they complained to Porteous about his frequent solicitations for cash and threatened to cut him off, the attorneys said, Porteous began sending court-appointed work to their firm. In return, the attorneys sent some of the fees they received to the judge.